Gravity
by Saucie
Summary: In the year 1876, Makimachi Misao leaves Japan to live with her guardian, a man she has neither met nor seen, in a lonely house in the Yorkshire moors. AU.
1. 1

_Author Notes_: Eventually – or not so eventually, perhaps – an Aoshi/Misao pairing … not a child/guardian relationship. With Secret Garden undertones. Or overtones. Just … loosely based on 'The Secret Garden,' and so I have to disclaim both that and Rurouni Kenshin … which I do …

* * *

_Never made it as a wise man._

It was raining. Again.

It was always raining in this infernal country, in her opinion. She used to like rain back home in Japan, but it was different here. This rain beat down everywhere, all the time, making the skies dark and the air oppressive. It weighed down on her, on everybody, making the people in the train snappy and irritable and the conductor direct glares at her feet, which she had hitched up on the seat opposite her.

God, it was always raining.

The train slowed to a stop, great clouds of steam billowing around the scratched windows as the engine whined to a halt. The conductor began to usher people off, and she scrambled out, pulling her cloak well over her head to stop herself from being soaked through and through. The platform was like the last one she had stepped off on – dark, wooden, slick with rain and a number of other liquids she didn't like to think about. Ignoring the way the rain soaked her stockings, she walked a little to the side, wondering how whoever was going to pick her up was going to find her in this shadowed, deserted place.

"Miss Makimachi?" said a voice off to her right. She turned, seeing a woman with dark hair swept back in a bun and holding a wide umbrella over her head.

"Yes," she said, bowing slightly, then looking uncomfortable. She wasn't supposed to bow, not in this country, but old habits died hard …

"My name is Omasu," said the woman, returning the bow with a slight smile on her lips. "I have been sent by Mr. Shinomori to receive you. If you will follow me, please." She turned and began to walk towards the ticketing booth at the opposite end of the platform, and she followed hurriedly, wishing she could stop and wring out the water in her shoes and socks.

There was a carriage waiting for them there. She was motioned in, and she seated herself a little self-consciously, aware of how the water dripping from her cloak seeped into the plush upholstering of the carriage seats. The woman stopped outside to talk to the driver for a minute, and then followed her into the coach, presumably having handed her umbrella to the driver as her hands were now empty.

The woman sat primly in the opposite corner of the carriage, her hands neatly folded in her lap and her dress, though slightly spattered with rain, not clinging to her body. She herself was painfully aware of how the skirt of her own dress was a little shorter than the skirts that everyone else wore, reaching mid-calf instead of covering her ankles. It was not her fault; she didn't have many Western clothes, and no one had been able to buy her anything since her arrival. This was the only thing that fit her now – her mother had bought it for her almost four years ago, when Western clothing had been all the rage. It still was, back in Japan …

She felt a sudden wave of nostalgia, sitting here in the dim interior of the carriage, and pushed it down resolutely.

She stared out the window, but could see nothing more than raindrops splashing against the carriage windows. It was dark outside, so any other scenery she might have been able to make out was also effectively invisible. She wished the woman would say something; the silence was pressing in on her, and she was not the sort who was used to being silent for hours on end.

The rain pattered incessantly against the roof of the coach as they drove on into the night, not ceasing even when they themselves came to a halt. She wiped her hand ineffectually against the glass pane, but it was useless. Screwing herself up, she asked, "Are we there?"

The woman smiled as she responded, "Yes, Miss Makimachi, we are. I'm sorry you could not see the manor on our way up, for that is really a great sight. As it is, I doubt you will even be able to make out the entire house standing where you are."

Manor? Jiya had never said that her guardian lived in a _manor_. She knew that he was wealthy, yes, but she hadn't expected a mansion, not the way this woman spoke. The woman got off, and she followed, pulling her cloak around her again as she alighted. The rain hammered down, and she was forced to bow her head a little as she walked. She had been right; she could see nothing but the raindrops hitting the ground, rebounding off the brick-paved driveway and soaking the hem of her skirt. The driveway seemed long, as far as she could see, but they were parked right at the end of it. Just a few more steps and she could see a wide stone step in front of her, and – raising her head a little – an enormous wooden door with a carved handle.

The woman smiled at her encouragingly as she used the brass knocker to bang on the door. It was pulled open by a heavyset man dressed in a dark jacket, much like the woman's dull, dark clothes. She followed the woman in, bowing to the man as he held the door open for her, and then checking her reflex action with a mental shake.

The hall they now stood in was huge. The floor was bare, except for a wide strip of carpet that led towards a broad staircase opposite them. Numerous doors opened off the hall, but most of them were shut. The heavyset man ventured out into the rain, presumably to get her luggage, which had automatically been transferred from the train to their carriage, as the conductor had said it would be. The woman, motioning for her to follow, started up the stairs, with Misao close on her heels. Several twists and turns later, they found themselves standing before a fair-sized wooden door, which looked exactly like the other doors lining the corridor.

"This is your room, Miss Makimachi," said the woman, holding the door open for her. It was in the dim light of the corridor that she suddenly noticed the slant of the woman's eyes and the true meaning of her dark silky hair.

"Why, you're Japanese too!" she exclaimed, unable to keep it in, then blushed furiously at her outburst. She should have noticed it long ago, and the woman's name should have made it obvious, but … she had been preoccupied, or perhaps she simply did not want to see.

The woman seemed amused. "Yes, Miss Makimachi," she said, in her usual unaccented English. "I am surprised you did not realise sooner. Will you be all right by yourself? Your luggage will be brought up in a few minutes."

"Oh, I'm fine," she said, smiling and taking care not to lapse into Japanese. Her English was not perfect, but she was fluent enough not to flounder for words. "Thank you!"

The woman looked a trifle surprised at her gesture of appreciation, and she inclined her head slightly before taking her leave. Misao stood there until the heavyset man brought her small suitcase up, then changed into her nightclothes – a white frilly nightdress to which she would prefer a yukatta any day. She looked around at the carpeted room, the bare dressing table next to the chest of drawers on one side, and a fully curtained wall on the other, and finally at the four-poster bed with velvet hangings pushed against the last remaining wall. It wasn't a young girl's room, perhaps, but it was a lavish enough room anyway, a room she should be thrilled to be sleeping in. But instead she found herself wishing for her sparsely furnished bedroom back home, with the futon in one corner and the paper door on the opposite wall, longing to see the sakura trees blooming outside the window.

Grabbing one of the overstuffed pillows that lay on her bed, she threw it on the floor beside the bed and cast herself down on it, burying her face in the silky material of the pillowcase. For the first time in several years, Makimachi Misao cried herself to sleep.


	2. 2

_I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealin'._

To say that he had been surprised when he had found out that his father's guardianship duties had passed to him would have been to put it mildly. He had been absolutely dumbfounded when his lawyer had turned up at the manor all those weeks ago and had told him that his obligations to his deceased father now included taking care of a sixteen-year-old girl. Not that his lawyer had realised, of course – he was usually quiet, so no one actually understood when he was truly speechless or just chose to be silent.

He had read through the documents time and again, hoping to find a flaw, a loophole, an inconsistency – anything. But the sentences were short and clear; if he was above twenty-five when anything befell the girl's parents, he would be her guardian in case of his own father's death. Had his father still been alive, _he_ would have taken care of the girl, but he had died almost two whole years ago. And he himself had turned twenty-six a few months back, so the age restriction did not apply either. 

He had been curious to know exactly what would have happened to the girl had he _not_ been above twenty-five, as his father had said he had to be to be her guardian, but his lawyer had been extremely vague on the topic, preferring to avoid it shamelessly than to even sit down and discuss it like he discussed all other matters. He had also wanted to know what had caused the untimely deaths of the Makimachis, and to this he got a satisfactory – and an extremely detailed – answer. They had died of a cholera epidemic that had apparently been sweeping the area. The girl had been out of the city for a couple of weeks with some old man who reputedly looked after her far more than her parents did, and had returned only when the last stages of the disease were taking their toll, the infectious period having passed.

The same old man had supposedly packed her off to England immediately, having known something about the arrangements made for the girl's guardianship until she was twenty-one. The voyage, of course, was a long one, and though most of it had been paid for, he found himself having to post money to one of his acquaintances in India, where the ship was due to stop, to pay for the rest of her passage. Already, she was more trouble than she was worth, in his opinion. It was a couple of months before news came of the ship's arrival in London, and there he had to arrange for a train ticket and seat for her to reach Yorkshire. The couple of trains she had to change on her way to their small station took delicate handling, since she was unaccompanied and most likely not able to navigate herself correctly in a strange country with a strange language. He desperately hoped she could speak English, for her own sake.

With the manager of the Yorkshire train station written to and thus the conductors successfully warned to watch out for her, he had felt he could safely say that he had done all that he needed to to get her safely to the manor, and from there on Omasu and Okon could probably handle her. None of the arrangements were his problem anymore. It wasn't like he had known the Makimachis personally, anyway; they had been good friends of his father, and had therefore handed the guardianship of their only daughter over to him, but that didn't mean that he had any responsibility to them, exactly. Why, technically, he had none to his father either – the two of them had never been on the best of terms, really. But his sense of honour was strong, so he obeyed his father's will as best as he could.

He had known, of course, that she would be arriving last night, and had looked out the window for her, slightly curious to know what she would be like. All he had seen was the straight figure of Omasu walking in front, with a small, hunched figure with a dark cloak pulled over her head following in her wake. He had quickly lost interest – she was probably just a scared, shy little girl with no thoughts of her own, like so many 'good' little girls were brought up to be. Having completely forgotten about her by morning, he was already dressed and seated at his desk with his pen hovering over the pile of paperwork that awaited him, when he was surprised by a knock on his door.

His breakfast had already been sent up, and it was common routine for him not to be disturbed until Okon came upstairs to ask him when he wanted lunch. He looked up, saying, "Come in."

The door slid open soundlessly, and Omasu stepped inside. She looked uncomfortable, hesitating before saying, "Um, Aoshi-sama, the girl … I mean, Miss Makimachi … She – arrived last night. I went to pick her up like you said."

He looked at her coolly. There was no reason for her to come up just to tell him that – if he had wanted to know he would have asked her if the girl had arrived safely. "Well?" he said, getting tired of waiting for her to continue.

"Well, you see, Aoshi-sama, I – " She floundered, then went on, "What arrangements are you going to make for her?"

He looked back at her blankly. "Haven't I already told you? She has nothing more to do with me – you and Okon will provide her with meals, help her out with what she needs doing. Is that not sufficient?"

Omasu looked a little irritated. "Frankly, no, Aoshi-sama. What is she going to do all day? She is a young girl, and I don't think she is content to just sit in her room with a couple of books to read all day. Are you going to get someone to tutor her, perhaps? A trained governess? Is she to go outside? Is she to wander around the house? What is she to do if you do not want to employ a governess for her?"

He shifted his eyes to the papers lying on his desk. No, he had never thought it would be so hard. He had thought that that was the end of it. He should have known that there would be other arrangements to make, rules to put down, orders to give. "No, I will not employ a governess," he said after a minute of thought. "She may go outside, yes, just not onto the moors. The gardens are large enough to satisfy her, I would think. She may wander around the house as long as she does not get lost. I would appreciate it if you kept her away from my rooms. Is that all?"

She nodded, looking a little thankful. She stopped for a second as she opened the door to leave, and turned around and said, "Just one more thing, Aoshi-sama."

He dragged his eyes back from the business transaction and said, "What is it?"

"Do you want to meet her?"

That question floored him. Want to meet her? Did he? Heavens, no. What would he possibly say to a sixteen-year-old girl who had suddenly – forcefully – taken up residence in his house because her parents had suddenly passed away? _Good morning, Makimachi-san. Nice to meet you. I hear your parents are dead. /Oh, yes, it was the most surprising thing, really …/_ After all, what other topic of conversation was there? 

He shook his head, almost adamantly. "No, I do not want to meet her, Omasu," he said firmly. "I have work to do now."

"Hai, Aoshi-sama," she said, lapsing into her native tongue, an obvious indication of disappointment or resignation on her part. "Sorry for bothering you."

It was late afternoon by the time he finally got around to having lunch. Apart from breakfast, which was – without fail – sent up at eight o'clock every morning, right after his morning walk, all his mealtimes were erratic, ranging from lunch at six in the evening to dinner at perhaps midnight, or whenever he felt hungry. It was one of the advantages of having the entire household at his beck and call. Strangely enough, it was Omasu who brought it up for him, instead of Okon, who usually did it. He had once again forgotten about the girl, and was quite surprised when, halfway through his meal, he heard the sound of pattering footsteps outside in the corridor. Knowing full well that neither Okon nor Omasu had that light, carefree walk, he pushed back his chair and walked towards the door, his hand poised above the doorknob as he listened.

He heard the sound of a door handle being rasped, a low sound of frustration, then the sound of footsteps approaching his own door. He thought for a split second that he was going to demote both Okon and Omasu for not keeping a close watch on the girl, then flung open the door himself before the footsteps could come too close. 

He didn't really expect to see what he did. He had thought he'd see a tiny, shrunken little thing, stammering apologies with a bent head and respectful words. Instead, wide blue eyes stared up at him, shining with surprise. The girl was standing about a step away from the doorframe, her hand outstretched as if reaching for the doorknob, frozen in shock. Her face seemed to have gone very pale – either that or her complexion was like that anyway. 

She came to her senses with a jerk, taking a jumping step backwards. "G-Gomen nasai!" she managed, then apparently decided that Japanese was not the way to go, saying, "I – I'm _so_ sorry, mister, I really am – I was just checking out all the doors in this corridor, you see, and most of them were locked, and the couple that weren't were not all that interesting, so I was just about to check this room, too – I had _no_ idea someone was in it, honestly – "

No, the shy little girl he was expecting wouldn't blabber on and on like this. She was still talking, he noticed vaguely, something about how he could let people know he was in a room so that they wouldn't almost barge in by accident. The sound of her voice was strangely pleasant, not the thin squeaky voice that so many women had. He saw her eyes widen suddenly as she looked him up and down, as if seeing him for the first time, and she took an involuntary step backwards.

"Are you – " she squeaked suddenly, and he mentally winced at her shrill tone, "Are you, by any chance – are you Shinomori-san?"

He hadn't expected her to be so direct, either. "Yes," he said coolly, getting in his first word. "And you must be Misao."

She nodded vehemently. "Well – uh – g-good morning, Shinomori-san! I – uhm – told you why I came here already – so I – I suppose I – "

"I believe it is late afternoon," he said quietly, feeling a strange stirring of something inside him, something that was almost – amusement? He couldn't honestly remember the last time he had smiled, and neither could he remember the last time he had been bothered by that fact.

She flushed. "S-S-So it is!" she stammered, backing away further. "Uh – I – I'm sorry for bothering you, Shinomori-san!" she shot over her shoulder, turning and running full pelt down the hallway, her sandals – contrasting oddly with her restrictive skirt – slapping softly against the carpeted floor.

He leaned against the doorframe, watching the corner around which he had disappeared. He had definitely not expected to meet her like that. He had thought conversation would be hard, and that he would have no idea what to say. It seemed she always would, so maybe he really wouldn't have to make a conscious effort to avoid her. Besides, he couldn't possibly avoid her for the next five years, and she would be living with him for at least that long.

He turned and went back to his work, wondering why all the women he knew always turned and left with a 'sorry for bothering you, Shinomori-san,' and suddenly regretting the fact that he was leaving for London on business for a couple of weeks the day after tomorrow.


	3. 3

_Tired of livin' like a blind man.___

She fingered the spoon absentmindedly, looking out at the landscape that she could see through her window, the curtains drawn back halfway. The moors were covered with fog, perhaps an after-effect of the unrelenting rain of a few days ago. All she could make out was the distant wall that marked the border of the Shinomori property, and the bit of driveway and greenery that was located just beneath her second-storey window. 

"Are you done with your breakfast, Miss Makimachi?" asked Okon, peeking in at the doorway. The resemblance between her sister and her was almost uncanny, Misao felt.

"Not yet, Okon-san," she said. That much Japanese she could not keep out of her sentences, she had realised; 'mister' and 'miss' never quite conveyed the sort of respect she was trying to portray. "I'll bring the bowl down to the kitchen when I'm done."

Okon looked doubtful for a minute, then nodded her thanks and closed the door after her as she left. Misao went back to stirring her porridge around discontentedly, wanting more substantial food than this lumpy substance. Perhaps not even substantial – she would love green tea at this point, even. It was strange that in a household with a Japanese master and servants, the food and the style of living could be as Western as any other English house. 

Had she been bored in the past three days? When she thought about it she could say, strictly speaking, no. She had had her thoughts to keep her company, but it had surprised her that she could sit for hours on end curled up on her windowsill, staring out at the gently waving grass of the moor that stretched around them as far as the eye could see. That was not like her – she was the type of person who could never sit still for more than five minutes, who couldn't keep _quiet_ for more than five minutes, and here she was, not even wanting to go out and run around in the gardens outside, something that was a very tempting prospect back home. Perhaps her parents' death had affected her after all.

She thought back to the one time she had seen her guardian ever since her arrival, and blushed furiously at the very thought. She had been restless that first day, wanting to know more about where she was and what the place was like. So she had snuck out, regardless of the consequences, and not even bothering to ask Omasu or Okon whether she was allowed to or not. She was not used to authority, anyway – Jiya, the old man who had always taken care of her, her 'grandfather,' had never exerted his right to order her around, and her parents … well, frankly speaking, she had been quite surprised that they even remembered to entrust her to a guardian in their lifetimes. She had barely known them, and most of the time she wondered whether they even knew that she was alive.

But Shinomori-san had surprised her. She knew that her original guardian had been his father, not him, but she hadn't really expected him to look only a little older than twenty-five. Well, technically, he _was_ just a little older than twenty-five, but … she had expected to see an older man, someone with greying hair and a benevolent smile, even though her mind told her that none of her parents' friends' children could be more than ten years older than her. And apart from her initial shock, there was something about him that made her writhe uncomfortably under his cool, blue-grey gaze. Had his mother been a gaijin? It was his eyes that had made her think that – the colour of his eyes, and the fact that he had an entire mansion here in England, that could quite possibly have been passed to him through his mother – it was unlikely that his father had bought it, all the way here in England, however rich he was.

Despite that, she couldn't deny that she had liked him, in that short, awkward meeting they had had in the doorway of his room. There was no doubt that she had embarrassed herself irrevocably in front of him, but she had found herself wanting to grin like an idiot at his dry comment about it being the afternoon instead of morning. Perhaps it was his wry sense of humour that appealed to her, so unlike her own slapstick humour. Perhaps it was the way his hair fell over his eyes, so that you could only catch glimpses of the gleaming grey-blue depths. Perhaps it was the way he spoke, with that strange inflectionless tone that she couldn't quite copy. Whatever it was, she did like him, and she was willing to bet anyone that he would make a decent guardian, whatever people might think.

It was on that note that she went downstairs, holding the now empty bowl of porridge above her head as she jumped down the stairs, taking them two at a time like she was wont to do. She found herself outside the kitchen, face to face with Omasu, who took the tray from her hands and ushered her back upstairs, telling her that she would be sending a girl from the village up to clean in a little while – she hadn't come for the past couple of days due to the rain.

Misao nodded, bounding up the stairs once more. Her room, though still as untouchably lavish as it had been the first time she had seen it, at least for her, had taken on the look of occupancy, making her feel a lot more comfortable as she stepped into it than it had two days ago. Had it really only been two days? She felt as if she'd lived here for years, the pattern seemed so familiar. Smoothing out her one and only skirt, she seated herself on the soft feather-bed, squirming in annoyance as she sank into the middle of it. She had yet to sleep on it – she always slept next to it on the floor, unable to make herself feel at ease behind the velvet hangings and silken sheets. She was practicing learning to sit on it, but it took work.

She was busy trying to balance herself cross-legged in such a way that she stayed on level with the rest of the bed and did not land herself in a hollow in the middle when there was a knock on the door, and she tumbled off the bed completely, landing in a tangle on the floor.

"Come in!" she called exasperatedly, expecting it to be Omasu or Okon with some sort of message, but instead found herself faced by a timid looking young girl, perhaps five or six years younger than her, peeping around the edge of the door. 

"May I – May I come in, Miss?" she asked, her fingers tightening where they clutched the wood of the door, her knuckles whitening in the process.

_Why on earth is she so nervous?_ She motioned with her hand, inviting her to enter. She did, clutching a broom to her chest as if it were her most precious possession in the entire world. Her clothes were neatly stitched in many places, but the careful darning could not erase the fact that they had been handed down, turned up and lengthened in turn countless times. The girl wore a short white apron over her brown dress, which came till her knees.

"Th-Thank you," she stammered, closing the door carefully behind her. The almost inaudible _snap_ it made almost made the girl wince. "I – I've come to clean."

"Of course," she said with a smile, hoping to put the girl at ease. "Where will you start? Would you like me to help?"

The girl looked dumbstruck at her suggestion. She held on to the broom handle for dear life, as if it was the only thing that kept her hold on sanity. Misao could see her fingers whitening again, the blood draining from her face as well as her knuckles. "N-N-No!" she gasped finally. "I can do it myself, Miss, th-th-thank you!"

There was something about the girl, an air of depleted self-worth, which prompted her to take her at her word. "Okay," she said, smiling. "I'm sure you can manage it on your own."

The girl smiled tremulously, as if not quite sure whether to believe her. But Misao could sense a vague sense of pride pervade the air around her, as if she was glad someone had that much faith in her, and Misao felt inexplicably pleased with herself.

"So," she said, disentangling herself and scrambling onto the bed again, looking at the gaijin girl as she bent at the grate in the wall opposite her, "what's your name?"

The girl started, then stammered, "Ts-Ts-Tsubame." Her face went red as she spoke, her movements jerky and uncertain as she wiped the edges of the fireplace with a damp cloth. 

Misao frowned, slightly puzzled. The girl was obviously English; there was no slant to her eyes, no accent to her voice, but the name was obviously Japanese. "Aren't you European, though?" she asked perplexedly, almost overbalancing once again.

"English, yes," said the girl, her hands now blackened by the coal in the grate. "But – you see, my – my cousins' father used to be a gardener here when – when Mr. Shinomori's parents used to be alive, and he used to think … he used to think that Japanese names were p-p-pretty."

"Your _cousins'_ father?" she asked. "How come he named you, then?"

"Well, my parents passed away when I was only a few months old, so since then I've lived with my cousins," she said, a faint blush still on her face but a little more confidence in her voice than there had been previously. 

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely, uncrossing her legs with some difficulty, and to her delight not falling backwards on the bed. 

The girl made a small sound of agreement, her short hair now blackened thoroughly as she pushed it back from her face. She was just beginning to transfer the coals from the grate to the pail she had brought with her that there was a knock on the door again, and, this time without invitation, a girl walked in, carrying a wooden bucket in one hand and a mop in the other.

"Here, I'll take care of it now, Tsubame," said the girl briskly, albeit a little tenderly. "You go see if Miss Omasu will get you something to eat in the kitchen."

"Th-Thank you, Kaoru," stammered the girl, grabbing her pail and broom and backing out of the room with a respectful glance at Misao.

The new girl, who looked to be a year or so older than her, set her things down beside the grate and bent down in front of it herself, securing her hair back with a dull blue handkerchief. She looked completely gaijin, too, but again, her name was Japanese. Misao assumed she must be one of the cousins Tsubame had talked about. 

"Hello," she said, in her best friendly voice. "I'm Misao. Your name's Kaoru, right?"

The girl, like Tsubame, looked a little surprised to be spoken to, but did not seem to be uncomfortable at all. "Yes," she said, her movements practiced and measured as she cleaned out the grate with experienced ease. "I come up to the manor every day except on Sundays to clean and such. Missed the last few days because of the rain."

She nodded. "Yes, Omasu-san told me. Do you live down in the village near the station?"

The girl nodded too, the coals clinking as she dumped them into her pail. "Yes, I do. With my cousins and brother and sisters. There's a total of eight of us living in that house, and I have to support all of them." She sighed, her vicious sweeping at odds with her resigned look.

"Eight of you?" she said, surprised. It was a new notion to her; always a bright, happy child, she and Jiya had been more than enough company for each other, both being of much the same disposition, the older man's only tempered by time and wisdom. She had never longed for the company of other children her own age, and had never really had it. 'Family' was a strange concept, when she thought about it. 

"Yes," said the girl, a slight smile on her face. "My cousin, Tsubame, who you just met. My ten-year-old brother, Yahiko, and my two younger sisters, who are seven and five. And then there's my older sister, who's training to be a nurse but doesn't earn. And, of course, my two freeloaders … " She shook her head in feigned disgust, but Misao could sense her pride as she talked about her family, especially the freeloaders.

"That means … you earn for all of them?" she asked, a little surprised, then chiding herself for being so, for it was obvious by the state of the girl's clothes and her half-starved look that she had to scrape together a living with great difficulty. 

"Yes," said the girl, punctuating her statement by a savage swipe at the grate. "It's not so bad, really – Mr. Shinomori pays well, and I've seen people in the village work in places that aren't half as good as this – nor half as safe. I don't mind."

Misao looked at her back, the rough grey cloth of her dress stretching taut across her thin frame. A sudden thought occurred to her, and she said, "How long have you worked here?"

"Almost two years now," she answered, getting up from the clean grate, the front of her smock smeared with black soot. "Like I said, Miss, I don't mind at all."

"Misao," she said, waving off the English address. "So … do you know Mr. Shinomori, then, Kaoru-san?"

Kaoru blinked at the '-san' she had added to her name, not quite sure what it meant. Even after two years spent working at the manor, no one had ever spoken Japanese to her face. "Well, Miss Misao," she said, deciding that the 'miss' would probably match the '-san', "I've only cleaned for him once or twice, 'cause he's not usually in the room when I'm sent in to sweep."

"So you don't know anything about him?" she asked disappointedly, teetering as she struggled to stand on the bed on one foot.

"Well … " said Kaoru, obviously wanting to talk but looking unsure of how to say whatever she wanted to. "He's out of the country most of the time, that much I know. I've heard it said that its business, but personally I think he just likes getting away from this house, know what I mean? I'm sure quite a bit of it _is_ business, but still … Apart from that, I don't know much about him. The townspeople talk a lot, but I don't give crap about that." She covered her mouth quickly, as if ashamed that she had let some of her more uncouth language slip, and went on with a slight blush on her face, "As far as I've seen, I think he's a decent person. A _sad_ person, if you get my meaning. Most people get all put off by his iciness, but if you ask me, I'd just feel plain sorry for him after all he's been through."

"What's he been through?" she asked immediately, her curiosity piqued.

The girl suddenly looked evasive. "Oh … things … It isn't my place to tell you all that stuff, you know, Miss Misao … it is just village gossip, after all. I mean … yes, its just village gossip, seriously. You should ask him yourself, you being his ward and all."

She almost laughed at that idea. "Ask him what? Shinomori-san, what do village people say about you? I've only met him once, after all, Kaoru-san!"

The girl laughed, albeit a little nervously. "Well, it's been nice meeting you, Miss Misao … I daresay Tsubame will be back to dust the rest of the room in a while, just as soon as she gets something to eat … and I have the rest of my chores to do, so … good-bye, Miss Misao." She darted out of the room before Misao could say anything, leaving her to stare up at the ceiling and wonder exactly what townspeople could have to say about her guardian. He didn't seem the sort of social, outgoing person who usually became the victim of scandalous gossip. But then, that was in Japan … who knows, maybe it was different here in England.

With those thoughts pushed out of her head, Misao devoted her full attention to attempting to stand on the four-poster bed with one foot in the air – an extremely difficult endeavour, considering she couldn't even sit straight on it without tumbling off. When Omasu finally came upstairs to see what was causing the repeated thuds, all she found was a very bruised Misao glaring at a badly battered feather-bed with murder in her eyes.


	4. 4

_I'm sick of sight without a sense of feeling._

His trip had taken longer than he had expected. He had found that he was being tailed, and had therefore delayed his stay in London until the tail was forced to make a move, seeing that he himself was not about to budge. His mission had been successful, in the end – the documents were filled out and delivered, and the tail thrown into the interrogation room. The police, of course, had been as grateful to their Japanese associate as they always were, and he had had to postpone his return even further as a result of the dinners they gave, which he could not, in all politeness, possibly refuse.

He knew something was different from the minute he stepped into the house. The manor had always had a melancholic, despairing air about it, reminiscent of sorrows long past, but all he could feel was a heady lightness about the surrounding atmosphere that almost made him giddy just by the buoyancy it had. The manor looked different, too – furniture hadn't been shifted, nor had there been any repairs … all that had happened was a curtain thrown open here and there, a table knocked out of it's neat, orderly arrangement, a few books left open on a sofa, things that gave the house a lived-in look that he found quite fascinating.

He had just begun to ascend the staircase in the main hall when he was arrested by the sound of delighted laughter from above him, and as he watched, light, running footsteps rounded the corner at the top of the stairs and stopped a few steps above him, bright blue eyes staring at him in round-eyed surprise.

_Must we always meet unexpectedly?_ said a disgruntled voice inside of him, and he brushed it away, saying instead, "Good morning, Makimachi-san."

She opened her mouth, presumably to acknowledge his greeting, then tilted her head to one side, her long black braid bouncing about her, and said wryly, "It _is_ morning this time, isn't it?"

He stared at her, mildly surprised by her response, knowing that this was his cue to smile in answer to her good-natured remark, but unable to make himself do so. "Yes," he said finally, trying not to look at the indecent amount of leg that her hitched-up skirt revealed.

"Did you just get back?" she asked, still standing a few steps above him. It made her taller than him, and he was forced to look up at her, something he was not used to doing for anybody.

"Yes," he said again, his neck beginning to ache from the unusual position it was in. He supposed that she wanted more from him than monosyllables, but he knew he wouldn't be able to make himself say anything. It wasn't that he'd lost his cool … he simply couldn't find anything to say that could possibly increase the light in her eyes, or the brightness of her smile. And that was all he wanted to do when he looked at her.

"Did you have a good trip?" she continued, looking undaunted by his lack of response. Wasn't she tired of having a conversation like this, standing right in the middle of the hall at the top of the staircase? She could have chosen some other place. _And where would that be? Your room? She'll be mad to ever go near it again, the way you spoke to Okon later about it!_

"Yes," he replied, his mental chiding not allowing him to formulate a further sentence. 

She screwed up her face, rubbing the back of her hand across her nose much the way he remembered himself doing when he had been a child, frustrated with something. "Mou!" she said in exasperation. "You say something now! This is really weird, living in the same house with a guardian who can't answer you in more than one word!"

He couldn't argue with that. But what could he possibly say? _Your skirt needs to be lengthened._ He doubted she would appreciate that. _You really need to clean your shoes before you come inside_. What was he, her mother? Yes, her boots were leaving muddy imprints on the otherwise flawless carpet, but someone could take care of that. _You have beautiful eyes._ Where did that come from?

"Mou!" she said again as he said nothing. "Don't say anything, then! I was just trying to make friends, anyway. But I guess you have some place to go to, or some such thing, ne? We could talk some other time, perhaps? Because we really need to."

_Do we_? His thought was surprised. He couldn't think for the life of him what they had to talk about, when they'd only met each other once before and he was already thinking uncharacteristic thoughts and she was acting like she'd known him forever. "As you wish, Makimachi-san," he said, inclining his head and walking past her up the stairs.

As he opened the door to his room, he could only think that his last statement was one word more than 'good morning, Makimachi-san.' Maybe, with a little bit of work, he might just be able to hold a conversation with her that was _not_ one-sided. Sighing as he looked at the fresh pile of paperwork on his desk, he almost laughed at the improbability of his last thought. 

He had been avoiding her shamelessly for the past two days, and he knew it. He'd shut himself up in his room, taking his meals there as he always did, and not even stepping out for his usual stroll in the gardens. He wondered, of course, what she did all day, and had once caught sight of her out in the twisting walkways of the gardens from his own window. She had been sitting on the ground, cross-legged, her skirt once again hiked up around her knees to allow freedom of movement, talking animatedly to Shiro, the gardener's son. Shiro had gone on with his leaf-raking, unperturbed by her steady stream of talk, for a good two hours, until she finally got thirsty and went inside for a drink of water.

But apart from that, he had not seen or heard from her for a whole forty-eight hours, and he could sense – from the crackling atmosphere – that the new occupant of his manor wasn't happy about his evasion. He didn't think that she would ever have the guts to come to his room herself if he didn't talk to her soon, but apparently he had misjudged her, because, right after breakfast, there was a confident rap on his door, and he had no choice but to say, "Come in."

The door was pushed open slightly, and a head poked itself in. "Shinomori-san?" she said hesitantly. "Are you busy? Or do you have time to talk? It's okay if you don't … I can always come back later, or something … "

She was offering him a chance to put off their 'talk' further, but he knew that it would only make it harder for him later on. "No, come in," he said, putting down his pen from where he had had it poised above his unfinished paperwork. 

She looked relieved as she opened the door fully and came in, standing in the middle of the room a little way away from his desk. "Thank you," she said, and he noticed vaguely that her skirt had been ironed and was being worn properly today, still a little shorter than was usual for young women, but good enough. 

"What is it that you wanted to talk to me about, Makimachi-san?" he said calmly, deciding to treat her as any of his other business associates, since that was the only way he knew how to talk to people.

"Well," she said, twisting her fingers together, "you could start with calling me Misao, perhaps. Because since you're my guardian and all, I can't possibly have you addressing me by my family name, right?"

He said nothing, continuing to simply look at her. She wanted him to call her by her first name? Well, what she said made sense, but … "As you wish, Makimachi – Misao-san."

"Okay, fine, '-san' will do …" She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand again, casting around for words. "Well, um, Shinomori-san, I … well, I … have some – some questions."

Questions? About what? Her parents? His responsibilities? Most likely, yes. He _did_ have an obligation to answer whatever she asked, just by virtue of being her stand-in parent. He found that phrase abhorrent – 'stand-in parent' – when he thought about it, but it was true. "And what are those?" he said, his eyes on the documents in front of him.

She cast about for words. "Well, for example … can I go down to the village, someday? Kaoru-san goes everyday, and it's quite safe, the drive across the moors is … "

"Someday," he said, nodding. "I am well aware that the moors are safe, but I would rather not have you risk the drive just now."

She frowned, but said nothing. Apparently, she respected his authority. "All right," she acceded. "I have some more – ah – personal questions, too, if you don't mind. About my – my mother and father and … and you … "

_I should have expected that._ Wearily, hoping that he could skirt the truth easily, he said, "And what are those?"

Now that she had his permission to ask, she squirmed uncomfortably. "Well … I was never – um – told that I had a guardian in England. I always thought that if something happened to my parents, I'd stay with Jiya, the old man who brought me up. So … so how did your parents know my mother and father?"

She didn't even know that? Someone should have addressed that issue with her beforehand, definitely. "My father was a close friend of your father," he said, the bitterness in his voice when he spoke of his father almost undetectable. "Since you have no blood relations still living, your father entrusted your guardianship to my father."

"And so you got it after he died, right?" she said, looking thoughtful.

"Yes," he said. "I had to be above twenty-five to – "

"Oh yeah, I know that part," she said, waving him off. He looked at her, unused to being cut off in the middle of his sentences. All his acquaintances were usually so happy to hear him talking that they never ever interrupted him. She looked as if she was going to ask something else, then sighed and said, "Well, I guess that's all I _mainly_ wanted to ask. Thank you for telling me, Shinomori-san. And … um … how old do I have to be before I don't need guardianship?"

"Twenty-one," he said coolly, his eyes once again on the papers on his desk. Was she already sick of this house? Well, she'd have to put up with it for another five years, at the very least …

"That old?" she said, staring at him. "I thought it was eighteen!"

"This is England, Maki – Misao-san," he said, almost severely. "Not Japan."

She made a face. "Yeah, yeah … I know. Why, they think women can't take care of themselves at eighteen here? Talk about oppression … "

"I would think that women are more oppressed in Japan than they are here," he said, feeling almost amused by her assessment of the guardianship laws. 

"Only if they want to be," she said seriously. "I mean, I ran about in shorts and an old hand-me-down ninja shirt all day until I was fifteen, 'til my mother finally remembered that I was alive and threw me into the house with a kimono. But I could still go about and do what I wanted, if I set my mind to it. But you _are_ right, in a way … not all people do that."

"Yes," he agreed, surprised by the turn the conversation was taking. "But you are right, also; people _can_ do it, _can_ get rid of the restrictions traditions impose on them, if they try."

"Hai," she said, and then made a face as she discovered her lapse into Japanese. "By the way, Shinomori-san, how come you don't talk in Japanese?"

He looked back at her inscrutably for a minute, finally saying, "That is up to me."

She reddened again, then smiled to cover her embarrassment. "'Course," she said. "Well, thanks for answering my questions, Shinomori-san – you've been a great help. Sorry for bothering you, though."

"It was no trouble, Misao-san," he said, inclining his head slightly. As she bowed and left the room with the smile still on her face, he was dimly surprised to realise that what he had said had been true.


	5. 5

_This is how you remind me._

"You know, Omasu," she said, lying back on her bed as the other woman sorted through her cupboard, as if looking for something, "you were right."

"About what, Misao-san?" said Omasu. She had dropped the 'miss' a couple of weeks ago, replacing it with a '-san' that Misao didn't mind.

"That Aoshi-sama – I mean, Shinomori-san – was nice. I mean, I liked him, but I didn't know if he was nice or not, know what I mean? But he is nice. And I couldn't really _tell_, but I thought he was pretty surprised when I walked in."

"Well, I told you," said Omasu, looking a little pleased with herself. "Aoshi-sama _is_ nice, but he just doesn't like being around people much. And so, obviously, people tend to avoid him as well, since he makes them uncomfortable."

"He makes me uncomfortable," Misao said truthfully, spreading her arms out as she lay on the bed. "But I can deal with that. I like talking to him."

"Well, you've phrased that right," smiled Omasu, hanging up her nightdress on a triangular piece of wood she called a 'hanger' and placing it in the cupboard. "You couldn't possibly say that you liked talking _with_ him."

Misao laughed. "No, I did the talking. But he replied in full sentences, which is more than he did when I met him on the stairs a couple of days ago."

Omasu smiled. "Wow. Did you count the number of words he spoke, too? And take notes?"

She threw a pillow at her, grinning. "No! I'm being serious here!"

"So am I!" laughed Omasu, closing the cupboard and turning around. "But no, truthfully, Misao-san, I'm glad. Aoshi-sama needs someone to talk to him and get him out of his world of spying and government work. And if he doesn't mind your company, I can't think of anyone better."

"Mind my company?" she said doubtfully. "I think he does. He looked pretty annoyed in the beginning, when I came in. But what did he expect – avoiding me like that!"

 "He doesn't know you," she said, smiling. "After all, you've been living here for a month and a half and he's only been here for a total of four days in that entire time span. Give him some time. Besides, the last girl your age he ever saw was Kaoru, and he never had to talk to _her_."

Misao grinned. "Yeah, well, anyway, I thought he was nice. Is he going to go away on business again soon?"

Omasu shrugged. "You never know, with him. Perhaps. You should corner him more often, you know … barge in on him when he doesn't expect it … it will do him good."

"Yes, but … I'm running out of things to talk _to_ him about. It's not like he's ever going to reply in more than a 'yes' or a 'no' anyway, so I have to say something to which the reply only _is_ 'yes' or 'no' … that way I don't think _he_ feels that uncomfortable, and I don't feel like he doesn't want me around. I mean, I _do_ feel like that, obviously, but still … "

Omasu pursed up her lips and stared at the closed door of the cupboard intently, only half listening to her. "Misao-san," she said, turning towards her, "how would you like to go in to town today with Okon and I to buy yourself some new clothes? You must be sick and tired of wearing the same skirt for over a month now."

Misao sat up in a flash. "Hontou?" she squealed, then checked her lapse. "Really?" she corrected excitedly. "I'd love to! But … when I talked to Aoshi-sama – that is, Shinomori-san – mou, I'm getting used to calling him Aoshi-sama just like you and the others do! – he said I couldn't go down to the village just yet. And besides, where would I get the money from?"

"Oh, I'll ask Aoshi-sama, don't you worry," said Omasu with a smile. "And do you seriously think he won't provide for you? He should have let me take you ages ago, but I never got around to asking him. Get yourself ready – I'll come to take you to the carriage in about half an hour, all right?"

"Okay!" she said happily, bouncing off the bed and landing on her backside on the floor. Omasu turned and left, and in less than twenty minutes Misao found herself standing outside in the cool air, her dark, worn-out coat covering her short-sleeved blouse and skirt. The wind had a vicious bite to it, evidence of the approaching winter. 

The ride into town was far more enjoyable than the last time Misao had made the same journey. She had her face pressed to the window constantly, watching the heaving surface of the moors and the occasional whitewashed building near the edge of the rutted road. The sight reminded her of the sea; her parents had taken her once, without her beloved Jiya, and – awed as she had been by the roaring, tossing waves – she hadn't enjoyed the trip at all. Being forced to play with pretty little dolls with pretty little girls in pretty little kimonos was not her idea of a good trip.

The weather, clear but nippy, held out till they reached the town. It was a small place, with a couple of taverns, some rundown shops, and a few wooden houses scattered over the place. The train station was by far the largest building around. Omasu, nodding to people here and there, led Misao into a small shop off to their right, ordering the carriage to remain outside. The shop was dim and dark, with a wooden counter running all around it. The shelves behind the counter were stacked with rolls of a variety of materials, none of them the bright, striking colours she was used to seeing in cloth shops.

"Mrs. Pritchard!" said Omasu, smiling at the small, dumpy woman who stood behind the counter, poring over a fat ledger. "How are you? I haven't seen you for quite a while now!"

"Yes," agreed the woman, nodding at her with a kind, benevolent smile. "Where have you been? And what's this?" She peered at Misao, blinking her eyes rapidly.

Omasu pushed her to the front, still smiling. "This is Mr. Shinomori's ward," she said. "She's just come from Japan, and she needs a few dresses."

"Of course!" said Mrs. Pritchard, waddling out from behind the counter and grabbing Misao's elbow. "Come here, girl, come here. Yes, stand on this. No, no, no! Have you never been measured for a dress before? Stand straight! Yes, that's it!"

"Mou," said Misao, clicking her heels together. She had never had to be measured for kimonos; the obi was simply tightened or loosened as was appropriate. The sleeves and the length were no problem, since all her kimonos had been handed down from her mother, who had much the same build that she did. 

"Now, Misao-san," admonished Omasu, inspecting a rich maroon cloth with a velvety sheen to it. "Listen to Mrs. Pritchard. She knows what she's doing."

Misao made a face but said nothing as the chubby woman measured every possible aspect of her, from the width of her calves to the width of her wrists. She hopped down from the wooden stand she had been made to stand on as Omasu and Mrs. Pritchard discussed various sorts of materials and prices. She stood to one side, hoping against hope that they'd buy her something other than grey and black. Black always made her look sallow. 

"How's Mr. Shinomori, then?" said Mrs. Pritchard, expertly rolling up a stretch of cloth Omasu had already inspected. 

"Well enough," answered Omasu. "He's returned from London."

"Thought so," said Mrs. Pritchard knowledgeably. "I told young Amanda last night that there was more going on at that manor than we knew about. And I was right … here you come, with his ward under your wing, the very next day."

Omasu laughed. "Good for you, Mrs. Pritchard. I'm sure Amanda will be very put off."

"Yes," said the woman, a sadistic gleam in her eye. "That she will. Deserves to be, too – that girl needs to learn to listen to her elders, that's what. Besides, she should know I know a good deal more about Mr. Shinomori's father and mother, bless their souls, than she does!"

Omasu said something Misao couldn't quite make out, and Mrs. Pritchard directed a sharp glance her way, then shrugged. "Of course!" she said. "I won't say a word about his mother, of course not! By the way, will you be checking up on Megumi on your way back? Kaoru might appreciate that – that sister of hers hasn't been home for a good three days, and I'm sure she's getting worried."

Omasu looked thoughtful, then nodded. "We'll drop by at the clinic, if that's the case. Now, how much is this material?"

The discussion went on for a while, and Misao quickly lost interest. They left the shop with cloth enough for two dresses, and some material already given for stitching – Mrs. Pritchard had agreed to sew the clothes as a 'special favour'. Obviously, Omasu had known her a long time. They headed for a small, two-storey building a few minutes down the road, with the words 'Misselthwaite Clinic' scrawled across a wooden board above the entrance.

"Mr. Rogers?" called Omasu, opening the door and walking in without ceremony. They were in a small, dim corridor, with a few wooden chairs lining the sides. No one answered. "Dr. Rogers?" she called again, walking through the passageway. They came out in a large room with peeling paint and the faint smell of spirit. Beds lined both sides of the room, totalling about twelve or fourteen. A small spiral staircase in the corner led to what was presumably the second floor. On the bed next to it lay a small boy, either unconscious or asleep. A young woman, dark hair held back by a white handkerchief, slumped forward on a chair beside the bed, sleeping.

A strangely soft expression appeared on Omasu's face. She stepped forward, with Misao in tow, and gently touched the young woman's shoulder. She awoke with a start, her eyes looking around with a panicked expression. "I'm so sorry, Dr. Rogers! I didn't mean to sleep, I really didn't – oh!"

She stared up at Omasu with an ashamed expression. "Miss Omasu! I – I didn't know that you were – "

Omasu smiled. "No, Dr. Rogers isn't here, Miss Megumi. I just came by to check on you – I hear you haven't been home for over three days, and Kaoru's very worried about you. You could have at least sent word." Her voice was admonishing but kind.

The young woman smiled, rubbing a tired hand across her eyes. "Yes, I should have. It's just – we've been so busy here, Dr. Rogers and I. The boy's fever just broke last night, and we're still not completely sure he'll live. He needs constant care – and there's nobody but me and Dr. Rogers who're qualified enough to provide it! And here I am, _sleeping_!"

Omasu places a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's all right, Megumi. Here, why don't you and Misao here go outside and buy yourselves a bun from the bakery across the road, and I'll sit here and watch over the boy? Yes, yes, I know – I'm not qualified, but it's just five minutes. You look as if you need a snack."

The black-haired woman looked doubtful for a second, then sighed and gave in. "All right, thank you, Miss Omasu. I – I'm really grateful." She stood up, taking off her doctor's smock as she did so.

"It's no trouble," said Omasu, smiling. "Now, go on – I don't think you've met Misao before, but I'm sure Kaoru's talked about her."

"Yes," smiled Megumi, beginning to walk out of the clinic with Misao close on her heels. "You seem to be good friends with my sister."

"She's nice," said Misao, hurrying to catch up. "I liked her."

"She is nice, isn't she?" said the young woman, crossing the road. "Too nice for her own good, sometimes, letting Kenshin and that other idiot we have boarding with us mooch off her scant income. I don't mind Kenshin – at least he helps around the house – but the other one – !"

Misao grinned. "She told me you didn't like him."

"That's obvious enough," Megumi said, smiling as she swung open the door to the bakery, from which delicious smells wafted towards them. "But enough about our life – how do you like England? Or Misselthwaite, to be exact."

"I quite like it," she said truthfully, watching her purchase two cream-filled pastries that made her mouth water. "Didn't think I would, but I do. The manor is a nice place to live, once you get to know it, I think. Shinomori-san is nice, too."

The young doctor looked at her askance. "You think so? Many people don't."

Misao shrugged defensively. "Yeah, well, that's because they don't know him. _I_ don't know him, either, but at least I _want_ to know him, and just _wanting_ to know him makes you understand him better, know what I mean?"

She handed her one of the buns, biting into her own with a blissful expression. "Perhaps. Most people don't _want_ to know him either, not with the stories about his mother and father that go around in these circles."

"Everyone's talking about those!" said Misao exasperatedly. "No one ever tells me what they are!"

Megumi looked thoughtful. "Well, its such common knowledge that I guess everyone sort of skirts the topic … it isn't a very clear story, either – just rumours, speculation … the usual village gossip. Not to be credited. I may not like Mr. Shinomori much, but I grant him this much – I don't think they're true."

"Argh!" said Misao, savagely biting into her bun. "_What_ are the rumours?"

Megumi half smiled, then said seriously, "I'm not the one to be telling you, Miss Misao, considering we've only known each other a total of five minutes, but … you must know that his mother was an Englishwoman. Her family had lived here for ages and ages, and she was the only daughter. So she inherited everything – the manor, the land around it … the family fortune. And then she met this young man while she was holidaying with her parents down south, a young Japanese man who'd just gotten here as a stowaway on a ship, all ready to 'make his fortune'. He did, just not quite in the way he expected. Long and short of it is, they fell in love and got married, even though her parents disapproved. They disappeared for a while, the two of them, and then when both her parents died, the property obviously passed to her, there being no other heir."

"So what was the catch? Seems simple enough to me," said Misao, devouring more of her bun and enjoying the cream oozing out of it.

Megumi shook her head. "You have no idea how scandalous the marriage itself was. She had married well beneath her station, a _foreigner_, no less, who didn't have a shilling to his name. When they both moved back to the family manor, they were completely shut out of society. But people still sensed that things weren't quite – right – between them. They'd had a son – our current Mr. Shinomori – and he was a strange little boy, people said, who never played around or talked to anybody. No, they were considered quite the outcasts. And the mother had been a bright, vivacious young girl, and was now just an empty shell – it was as if the husband and the son had sucked the brightness out of her." She paused, her eyes distant. "They said he – her husband – used to hit her. I – It was true. I saw them once; I was just a little girl, and I had gone up to the manor with my father, and they were out in the gardens, and one minute they were laughing and smiling and talking, and the next he was lunging at her, grabbing her by the hair, banging her head into the ground … it was horrible …"

Misao stared, her bun held loosely in limp fingers. "God," she said, wincing.

"Yes," said Megumi, her gaze still far away. "She died a couple of weeks later. We were all sorry – she hadn't deserved that. People say the husband killed her so that he could have the money. I don't know, personally. It's quite possible he killed her – just not for that reason. That's one of the main reasons _I'm_ never going to get married."

"So – so why don't people like Ao – Shinomori-san?" said Misao, swallowing a piece of the bun with difficulty. 

"Well, obviously, they'd like to avoid the son of a man like that," said Megumi briskly, suddenly jerking herself back to the present and beginning to cross the road. "And he's not known for his social skills, either. And also … well, its common knowledge that he didn't have a terribly great relationship with his father as well. Rumour is that _he_ killed him."

Misao choked on her bun. "People say Aoshi-sama killed his own father? Please!"

"Like I said," said Megumi, "I don't believe that bit. Not one word of it. Mr. Shinomori's a decent man, to a certain extent. We live off him, and he doesn't say a word to Kaoru when she goes up to the manor. As long as he doesn't lift a finger to hurt her, I won't mind."

That, reflected Misao, sounded a lot like what Kaoru had said the first time she had met her. They went back to the clinic, chattering about inconsequential things until Omasu decided it was time to leave. She was deep in thought on their way back up to the mansion, missing the view of it atop the moors once again, and surprisingly not very annoyed with herself about it. 

"Something wrong, Misao-san?" asked Omasu, as she walked her to her room.

"No," said Misao distractedly, then, stopping her as she turned to go, blurted, "Omasu – did – did weird things happen in this house?"

Omasu's face took on a carefully blank expression. "What do you mean, Misao-san?"

"Oh – just – well – did they? Any sort of weird things?" she said, floundering for words.

Omasu looked at her for a long time, before turning away. "It depends what you mean, Misao-san, but yes … things did happen. Things you'd rather not know about. Things you'd rather not talk to Aoshi-sama about."

Misao stared at her retreating back and mulled over her warning. So she wasn't supposed to mention village gossip to Shinomori-san, eh? Well, she wouldn't – not yet, at least. Maybe when she got to know him better, or some such thing. Right now, she had promised Shiro to help in piling up leaves to be burnt in a bonfire, and she'd never be able to help if she didn't go immediately. Pushing the thoughts of murders and dead parents out her mind with her trademark grin, she hopped downstairs again, not noticing a tall figure watching her at the end of the corridor, blue-grey eyes glinting.


	6. 6

_This is how you remind me …_

The portrait was glaring at him again.

After two hours of incessant code-breaking, two flat, lifeless black eyes staring at the back of his head could get quite annoying. Brushing his work aside, he folded his arms on his desk and rested his head on them, twisting slightly so that he could glare back at the portrait on the wall behind him. It was a painting of his father, strangely lifelike in its very lifelessness, framed and laminated with the sort of care he didn't think a picture of his father deserved. His mother had had it framed and hung up in his room when he had been a little boy, and he hadn't had the heart to take it down. It was only at times like these that he wondered why he bothered to be so sentimental.

He closed his eyes, hoping no one would come and knock on the door. His head was pounding, probably from lack of sleep, or perhaps the endless hours spent staring at the patterns of numbers before him. The code was eluding his grasp in a way that made him think that he was trying to catch smoke in his hands. It was there, he knew it, he just couldn't hold onto it. Perhaps he wasn't concentrating enough.

The sound of laughter drifted in through the open window. He massaged his temples and walked to the sill, leaning his hands on it as he looked out from his second-storey window. The moors spread before him, wide and unchanging, with wisps of fog away in the distance. Closer, within the boundaries of the manor gardens, he could see Misao and another girl – the one who came to clean, he thought – standing on the wide patch of lawn below his window. Misao was holding a rusty-looking rake, gesturing towards the leaves that had been piled into the corner with wild hand movements. The other girl was laughing, bent over almost double as Misao continued to relate whatever story she was narrating, still gesticulating comically. He looked down at them, wondering why he had never fit in so easily when he had been that young.

Misao obviously felt someone watching her, because after a while she frowned and glanced around. Catching sight of him looking down at the two of them impassively, she called, "'Morning, Shinomori-san!"

He couldn't remember the last time he had had a shouted conversation from his second floor window. "Good morning, Misao-san," he said calmly, not raising his voice too much.

"Isn't it great weather today?" she said happily, as the other girl – Kaoru, he thought her name was – slunk off, looking uncomfortable. "I think autumn's coming, ne, Shinomori-san?"

He hadn't really noticed the weather, but now that he thought about it, it was indeed a lovely day. The air was cool but not biting, and the sun warm but not glaring. The leaves had just begun to change colour, lending a sophisticated beauty to the atmosphere that was rarely to be seen in other seasons. "Yes," he said.

"I haven't seen you for a while," she continued, digging the prongs of her rake into the ground and leaning on the staff. "Were you busy?"

He wondered if he could possibly be more eloquent before saying, "Yes." She didn't look put off, though. She simply went on with her good-natured questions.

"You're always working, aren't you? Do you ever come outside? I mean, I don't understand how you can possibly stay in on a day like this." She took the rake in one hand and spun around, arms spread out wide. "I couldn't!"

He breathed in deeply, wondering exactly how he was supposed to reply to that without sharing some sort of information. Strange that when all he wanted to do was contribute to the conversation, he quailed at the opportunity to do so. Coldly, he said, "I take a walk in the mornings, usually."

Her face brightened instantly. "You do? That's great! Then you're not missing the weather after all! I hear it's going to get terrible very soon – winter will be all dry and cold and dead. They say that snow isn't nice here, not really." She paused for a second, then asked curiously, "Do you like snow, Shinomori-san?"

Did he? He had never thought about it. He compared it to all the other seasons he didn't object to, and decided that snow was quite pleasant. "Yes," he said finally.

Her smile was dazzling. "You do?" she said, almost hopping in excitement. "So do I! Wow, that's so cool! I _love_ snow! Does it snow a lot here?"

Ah, a variation. He could actually say something apart from 'yes' without contributing markedly to the talk. "No," he said.

Her face fell. "Aw … Oh well. Do you think you could come outside right now and help me, Ao – Shinomori-san? Because, see, Omasu-san and Okon-san are pretty busy, and Shiro broke his ankle – the idiot – and he isn't here today, and Kuro has the day off, and Kaoru just left, and I can't do all these leaves alone."

He stared at her. She was asking him to come outside? With her? Who was the last person who had asked him to do something, apart from his seniors at the government offices in London? He knew what he wanted to say, and he knew even before he spoke that he would not say it. "No, I am sorry, Misao-san," he said detachedly. "I have work to do."

She made a face before smiling brightly once more, but he could see that she was disappointed. "Yeah, I thought you would. Thanks for thinking about it, though. Well, see you, then, Ao – Shinomori-san!" she said, turning back to her raking, her mouth pursed up as she whistled cheerfully. 

He had just returned to his desk and was reaching for his papers when he realised that she hadn't said 'sorry for bothering you' before she turned away. Definitely an improvement. _And_, he had made her smile when he had said that he liked snow. Oh yes. There had most definitely been progress.

"Telegram for you, Aoshi-sama," came Okon's voice, punctuating the knock on the door.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. Was he never going to get any peace? He had to turn the code in by Friday, and it was Wednesday already and he had gotten nowhere. Not even a single pattern had been marked out. No primer, no nothing. "Come in," he said, trying not to let the weariness in his voice show. 

The door opened and Okon entered, tucking her hair behind her ears as she did so. She held a yellow envelope in one hand, which she placed on his desk and waited for him to read it. They always did that, Okon and Omasu, in case he wanted them to do something regarding the contents of any telegram or wire he received. 

He flipped the envelope open and pulled out the neatly folded piece of paper it contained, suppressing the urge to sigh as he skimmed through the contents. "It seems I forgot to pay the income tax for last month," he said quietly. "I'll write you a cheque, which you can take from me tomorrow and have paid. That will be all."

Okon bowed and left, shutting the door behind her softly so that it wouldn't bother him. They were all always so quiet and considerate – out of genuine respect, yes, but also because they felt sorry for him. He could feel their pity, feel it emanating from each of them – Omasu, Okon, Kuro, Shiro, the gardener's son … even the two girls who came to clean. He despised it, but there was nothing he could do. They kept up the place, were willing to live there regardless of how the townspeople must repulse them because of it, and he was grateful for it, even if he never let it show. But they knew him well – they probably did know.

He looked at the patterns spread out in front of them, wondering why they didn't make sense. He was thinking about them constantly – before he slept, when he ate, even while he was talking to someone. It couldn't be such a tough code – he'd cracked harder ones, he knew he had. He could _sense_ what was difficult and what was not. And this was not. So _why_ …?

Perhaps he ought to take the portrait off. It's flat, dull eyes were boring into his back, making him feel as if he was guilty of all the crimes and atrocities the villagers accused him of. He swung his chair around to face it, glaring back at the face that seemed so like his own. The same black hair, slicked back from the forehead unlike his, the same kind of face cut and closed, sharp look. Just the eyes were different – Japanese eyes, black and flat and penetrating. Even in the portrait, they bored into you. In real life, they had been terrible. His own eyes were like his mother's, he knew … she had been English, fair-haired and blue-eyed. He wondered where the grey tint in his own had come from, and the cold glitter. But no, he knew the last bit. He had seen the same iciness in his father's eyes so many times.

Why did his mother ever marry him? The question haunted him. It always had. His mother had had the whole of London at her feet, he had been told – she was rich, pretty, well-mannered and good company … there was nothing she didn't have. So why did she marry a cold, self-possessed young man, a foreigner, no less, who didn't have half a penny to his credit? He didn't doubt for a second why _he_ had married _her_ … it was the money, obviously. But why had she fallen for him? It was like – it was like Misao marrying _him_.

His mind went completely blank at that thought. He refused to believe, refused to accept that he had used that analogy. He refused to think any further, just in case he thought something worse, like – _no. Stop. Do not think. Do not think. _She was a _child_, for God's sake! A sixteen-year-old little _girl_ who simply didn't mind talking to him. _Which is more than anyone else has ever – do not think_! No wonder he couldn't concentrate on his codes. If he was perpetually trying to _not_ think, how could he possibly figure them out? But he couldn't let his mind function …

_Meditate, damn it_! He spread his palms flat out on the table in front of him, letting his mind blank out again. That was it. Blackness. Orderliness. No confusion. No uncertainty. _Ah, good, good … patterns. Yes, that was the way – no, to the left, a little – 30 degrees higher would – perfect. An overlap._ He opened his eyes, focusing on the random figures dancing around on the page before him. _Damn_. It didn't work. He switched the papers around, arranging rows of the digits the way he had in his mind, but the overlap was useless – it wasn't a primer. It was the same thing that had been happening all along.

If he had been the sort of person to give into urges, he would have ripped up the documents and thrown them across the room. Being who he was, he stacked them up neatly and locked them away in the top drawer of his desk, then walked to the window and leaned out, breathing in the night air. He remembered the last time he had stood in this window – it had just been yesterday morning, and he had been talking to Misao as she raked leaves and chattered on about things she knew nothing about – winter in England, and snow, and him being busy … 

The air was cold today. He could see nothing – just darkness stretching away in front of him, and – far away – the twinkling lights of little buildings on the edge of the moor lands. The gardens were dark and invisible in the black night. There were no stars out, and no moon. It was clouds that were hiding them, he presumed. The night his mother had died had been something like this. The air had been cold and biting, the night pitch black … all that was missing was the screams. Those screams still haunted him – he was used to waking up, covered in cold sweat, his ears still reverberating from the shrieks that he heard in his nightmares.

Sometimes he hated his mother for dying, and for leaving him and his father to cope with each other. She had always been a buffer between them, absorbing the enmity and hatred they radiated, breaking down the icy barriers they both set up. Perhaps it was that which had slowly killed the brightness in her soul, so that in the end she simply did not _want_ to live. The illness had had it easy when it came to resistance.

Or was it truly the illness that had killed her? He doubted it. He had wondered many times why she had not been able to fight off a simple fever, even given that she had no more will to live. And had she truly loved him so little that she was prepared to leave him all alone in this world, with just his father? No, she hadn't. She had loved him enough to save him from all the beatings his father ached to administer, enough to sacrifice so many of her own pleasures for him, so much so that she had nothing left in her life anymore, and in return he had loved her with a ferocity that alarmed him even now. He had never shown it, never appreciated it, but he knew that she knew. 

So then why had she died? The question pounded in his brain, like it had for almost twenty years. As a child, he had asked the same question, screaming it out at his father as his father beat him until he was black and blue. Even now, he asked it, mouthing it at every empty room and every blank wall, but the response was about as fruitful as his father's had been. No, he had no explanation; he couldn't quite bring himself to believe, like the townspeople did, that his father had murdered her himself – for he had been utterly devastated after her death, in a way that could not be faked. 

He had never thought twice about his father's death, on the other hand. He had passed away in the night, quietly, unobserved. He'd had heart problems, they'd always known, and it had probably just been a heart attack that had killed him. He hadn't been very old, about fifty-five or fifty-six, but the doctor hadn't been surprised. And no one had been disappointed. Least of all him. He'd been working, by then, work he'd never told his father about. Government work, picked up while he'd been at university, work that his father would never have approved of. He had still been studying when he'd died – it had been his last year – and had never had to hide his paperwork from him once he got back home.

He'd never enjoyed university, but it had been a welcome change from home. He had never made friends, but he did have many close acquaintances, who, even though they didn't understand him, didn't have any issues with his background or family history … probably because they didn't know it. He hadn't kept in touch with anyone over the past couple of years, except for those who'd followed something similar to his line of work, but he never felt the need for any more personal correspondence. 

He glanced back at his desk, at other papers stacked neatly on it. Letters from an associate in France, one of his subordinates in Delhi, an old acquaintance from school who'd ended up in his department. Nothing containing personal information, nothing he'd reply to with anything more than cursory politeness. He didn't mind, didn't feel like there was anything missing in his life because of his lack of friends – but then, you couldn't miss something you'd never had.

He looked out at the starless sky, at the pitch blackness before him. And at the far-away lights at the edge of the darkness. He remembered looking out like this a long time ago – last winter, perhaps. There had been no lights then. Just blackness, swallowing him, creeping in through his window, settling in the room, choking him. 

But there were lights now. Lights at the end of the blackness. 

Maybe that meant something.


	7. 7

_… of what I really am._

It was quite cold now. Her skirt was restrictive but warm, and she found herself wearing woollen socks and thick boots even in the house. She didn't like the frilly collars and the pearl buttons on her sweaters, so she simply wore her coat all the time, with a scarf wrapped around her neck when she went outside. She still did that regularly, enjoying running in the walled gardens in the cold, liking the heady feeling it gave her, a feeling like having too much sake but without the horrible after-effects. 

Today she'd coerced Shiro into letting her help in digging a small pit in which he was going to bury old garbage. She'd wrapped up warmly enough, and had dug all day, exhausting herself by lunch, and resuming until it got dark. Shiro had smiled at her enthusiasm, and now, as he packed up his gardening tools and took the spade she was swinging around, said, "There's this little locked up garden down the path – you've probably seen the door. I'm going to be doing some digging there too, next week. If you'd like, Miss Misao, you could come and help me out there too …"

She beamed, nodding her head excitedly. "Will it be snowing by then?"

He tilted his head, thinking. "Nah, don't reckon so. But maybe, if you hope enough," he added, looking at the disappointed look on her face, "it might."

She smiled broadly, waving at him as he turned and trudged down the path. She turned to go as well, watching the already grey sky darken even more as she walked towards the house. She stopped under the avenue of trees right before the path turned and merged with the driveway, bending down to look at the dry grass beneath. She looked at the tiny white blossoms there, blooming defiantly as everything else withered and died. They looked forlorn, uncared for, overshadowed by the trees around them. 

She didn't know if that was why she did it, but she bent down and stroked the tiny white petals, smiling. And before she knew it, she was talking. Talking to a cluster of almost invisible white flowers. "Everyone's forgotten about you, haven't they? No one really cares. They like you while you're here, but they won't really miss you if you're not, will they? It won't really matter if you're not there, will it? It'll make no difference to the trees, or to the grass. But – but it'll make a difference to me, okay? It will. I'll miss you. So – so you just hang in there, all right? Don't die like everything else. Because I'll miss you if you're not there."

She touched the small stalk, swallowing quickly, wondering why she cared so much, and then straightened, turning to go. The house loomed before her, huge, depressing, its windows blank and empty. It looked desolate, deserted. Uninhabited. Even though she'd done her best to make it come to life, to become a _home_ … it was still like this. It was still empty. What did she have to do to make it the sort of place she wanted to live in, a happy place, a place that made you happier, that buoyed you up instead of bogging you down?

She needed to see him. She knew that, suddenly. She needed to talk to him, to hear him talk, to say anything whatsoever. He could help, she knew. He could make it better. He would be wry and disdainful and he'd make everything better. He'd chase away the oppressive shadows, the unspoken horrors that lurked in each corner of the house. She didn't know how he'd do it, but, standing there under the darkening sky, the wind whispering through the trees, her gaze filled with nothing but the empty house and the aura that surrounded it, she knew that only his ice-blue eyes could drive away the emptiness.

She was running, suddenly, impulsively, into the house, slamming the door behind her, rushing up the stairs, her boots leaving muddy prints on the plush carpet, her breathing echoing in her ears. Her braid flew behind her, her thoughts whirling, unclear. And then one thought came to the fore of her mind, a thought that held more weight than _'What will I say?' _or _'What am I thinking?'_

_What will _he_ think?_

What would he think? What would he think if she barged in, breathless and panting, with nothing to say and no reason at all for disturbing him? What would he think if she said that the house was too empty, too lonely? What would he think of her ungratefulness when he'd put a roof over her head and given her an enormous house to live in, with far more freedom than girls her age should rightly be given? 

She came to a halt in front of his office, the only room she'd ever seen him in. He should be in here – he was always in here. As far as she had seen, at least. And she hadn't seen him much. Twice, in there. What if he wasn't? What if she walked in and he wasn't there and then he caught her there and never let her come near there again? 

And because she was Misao, she knocked and walked straight in.

He wasn't at his ever-present position behind his desk. He was standing near a filing cupboard in the corner of the dim, dark room, striking a match. He'd obviously heard her come in, because his head was half-turned, his air expectant. He didn't pause in his action, though, lighting a tall white candle that barely helped to brighten the room.

"Yes?" he said after a pause, in which she just stood in the doorway watching him as he placed the candle in a holder and headed for his desk, placing it there carefully.

"I – I – " She racked her brains for something to say, wondering why she hadn't thought of an excuse on her way up, wondering why his eyes didn't seem so blue in the dark. "Are you busy?" she managed finally, knowing the inevitable answer.

Surprisingly, it didn't come. "Not very," he said.

Two words. She almost grinned. "Well, um, you see, I just – just wanted – " – _just wanted to talk to you. Just wanted to see your eyes again._ " – wanted to know if – whether – you'll – " She thought of something Okon had once mentioned, and said, " – be getting me a governess anytime soon."

His expression didn't change, although it was hard to tell in the poor light, and she got the uncomfortable feeling that he knew that wasn't what she'd come to say. He didn't say anything, simply seating himself and motioning for her to sit in one of the chairs on the opposite side of the desk. "Not until next year," he said. 

"Oh," she said. "Good. Thank you." She was relieved, honestly … and she had also run out of things to say. 

They just sat there, looking at each other across a flickering candle and a pile of paperwork. It was weird and wonderful, sitting here like this, bathed in a ring of dim yellow light, just the two of them, cut off from the rest of the world within it. There was something strange about that candlelight, the light that encircled both of them. It was like a different world, a world in which nothing outside mattered. A world where his eyes looked into hers and hers into his and no questions were asked, no conversation was needed. 

She could sit here forever. She could sit here and watch him look at her, watch him breathe, watch the changing colour of his eyes, depending on the light, forever. She'd never felt like this before, never found it hard to breathe because of the presence of someone else, never felt the urge to touch anyone so strongly. 

But there was no forever. There was no forever, and one of them was going to break this. This feeling that they'd never name, this connection that they'd never acknowledge. This thing that they'd never have. 

"Is there anything else?"

Did he actually speak or had she just heard the words because she'd known that they were coming? She looked at his mouth, and his unmoving lips, and wondered. Maybe he hadn't. But it was broken anyway. Spoilt. Destroyed.

The connection broken before it could properly be made.

Broken, this thing that they'd never have.

She wanted to cry, suddenly. She'd never felt anything like this, she wasn't used to understanding things so clearly. Nothing intangible had ever been this obvious. None of this had been said openly, no words had been spoken, but she knew what she had felt. She knew, and it scared her. She was used to her childish innocence, her childish ignorance. She didn't want to be able to feel, if it meant this. She didn't want to be able to understand, if this is what understanding actually was. 

"No," she whispered, her skin feeling cold as she brought her hand up to her cheek, rubbing it forlornly. "There isn't anything else."

He nodded, and for a minute she thought he understood, that he felt it too, felt the way she was losing it, losing her innocence, her unawareness. She felt like she had lost it already, that some great part of her was missing, that he had taken it. Maybe it wasn't all her ignorance – maybe it was something else. Yes, it was something else as well. That something that had made her happy on her own, that something that _was_ her happiness. That something that was all her own, that she drew from herself and gave to herself, that got her through the depressing days and the difficulties in her life. That something that made her complete, all on her own, that made her content without anyone else's help.

And she knew, at that moment, at the age of sixteen and a half, that she'd never be complete on her own again. That she'd never be content. Never completely happy. Not until she regained that something that she'd just lost. 

Not until he gave it back to her.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

A/N: Short, I know. Sorry about that.


	8. 8

_It's not like you to say sorry._

It had been two months since that meeting in the candlelight, since she'd sat with him in his study and looked at him in a way that made his mouth dry and his hands clench in frustration. It was mid-January now, with the snow thick on the grounds and Misao's delighted laughter echoing up the stairs. Strange, how that went hand in hand – snow, and her laughter. She spent her entire day outside, building snowmen or completely unrecognisable animals. And though he enjoyed it, enjoyed hearing her voice day in and day out, enjoyed listening to her thudding footsteps up and down the otherwise silent staircase, he knew it was time for it to stop.

She'd been here for almost four months now. Four months. And she'd been free to do whatever she liked, to run wild about the house, to laugh and play and roll her skirts up past her knees if she wished. And however much he loved it, loved the light it brought to the whole house, he knew his duties. She was sixteen, would be seventeen soon – he didn't know when – and, as far as he knew, had absolutely no education worth regarding. She could speak English, yes, and though that was a high enough qualification in Japan, here it meant absolutely nothing. And, since local schooling for young ladies wasn't appropriate, he'd have to hire a governess.

He didn't have problems with the hiring. It would be easy enough to find someone, to give them a suitable wage and house them in the manor, to feed them regularly and let them interact as long as they wished with their pupil. He just had problems with the telling.

He knew that Misao wouldn't take it very well. She would take it, he was pretty sure, but how she took it was a completely different matter. He contemplated having Okon or Omasu tell her of his decision, but he'd have to face her someday, and so he might as well be the one to tell her, face to face. 

There were skipping footsteps in the corridor outside his room, and he knew she was coming in response to his call. She knocked and entered, not waiting for an answer, dripping melting snow all over his carpet. "Morning, Shinomori-san!" she said cheerily, heading for the half-drawn curtains in his room and pulling them wide open. "Look, it's snowing again!"

She'd picked up a lot more confidence around him over the past few weeks – he knew she'd never have had the courage to walk up and yank the curtains of his room open without his consent. But she was still wary, still hesitant – he could feel it, even though she didn't give the slightest sign. He could feel that she was deathly scared of being told not to do what she had just done, deathly scared of being frowned at, of being scolded. Deathly scared of the disapproval she expected from him.

He nodded, not feeling that a reply was needed to that statement. As she stood at the window, looking out rapturously, he said, "I needed to talk to you about getting that governess, Misao-san."

She started, turning around from the window so quickly that her braid whipped the glass and left a streak against the frost. "What?" she said, her eyes round. "But you said not till next year!"

"It is next year," he said evenly. 

"No, but – but – I don't need one! I mean, do I? Aren't I – too old, or something? Aren't girls my age supposed to be doing – other things, in England?"

He opened his mouth, but found himself unable to tell her that 'other things' meant hanging around in parties, looking for husbands, spending time sewing or playing the piano, or polishing up other womanly arts. Instead, he said, "You're doing nothing constructive with your time. I can see you haven't thought about what you want to do with the rest of your life, but at least you can think of your immediate future."

"I know what I'm going to do with my immediate future, okay?" she protested, as blobs of snow fell onto the carpet and disappeared into pools of dampness. "I'm going to go downstairs and make snowmen!"

"Not _so_ immediate," he snapped, irritated by the mess the snow was making.

"And then," she continued, "I'll eat, I'll sleep, and I'll wake up and do that all over again! There's no need for a governess!"

"And how long will you do that?" he said calmly. "Until the snow finishes? Until winter ends? And then what? What will you do every spring day, ever summer day?"

"The same thing," she said, but he could see that she knew how little weight her argument carried. 

"Listen to yourself, Misao," he said, and though she couldn't hear any change in tone, she could feel the impatience in his voice. "You have done nothing whatsoever over the past four months, and that was only because I felt you needed time to adjust, to get over – coming here. And now its time you moved on, time you did something with your life. And this seems the best way of going about it."

She stared at him, gaping, looking like a landed fish. He expected a response like a five-year-old's, a whiny response, something selfish and childish and endearing and exasperating. Something like, 'I don't _want_ to do something with my life!' Instead, what came out of her mouth shocked him.

"You – " She was pointing, half laughing, half stunned, "You – "

He waited expectantly, one eyebrow rising very slightly.

"You spoke!" she managed finally. "That – that must've been a whole – whole _paragraph_, I'd think! Wow! Fifty-four words, all coming out together! Wow!"

"Fifty-five," he corrected automatically.

She blinked at him for a second, and then burst out laughing. "You counted too! I don't believe it! You count the words in your own conversations!"

"I do not," he said woodenly. "It is my job to be observant, and so I generally remember any conversation I have word from word."

"Yeah, but it's not your job to remember the _number_ of words!" she giggled triumphantly, beginning to hop around on one leg. 

This was getting out of hand. "What timings would you like for your governess?" he said, hoping to stop her mad hopping.

"You counted, you counted!" she chanted, grinning.

"Nine o'clock to twelve, shall we say?"

"You actually counted!"

"And then a two-hour session after lunch – "

"You _counted_!"

" – from two till four. Do you agree?"

"I don't believe you do that!"

Enough. When he spoke, he would be listened to. When he spoke, he was always listened to. It was one of the privileges of not speaking often; when you did speak, people hung on to your every word. Maybe he'd spoken far too often around her, then, if she hadn't gotten the idea. There were certain rules here, rules she was forgetting. When he spoke, she would listen.

"You begin next week," he said, and his voice was empty, icy, the slight suggestion of gentleness and the even slighter suggestion of amusement gone from it. He took the amusement and laughter from the room as well, leaving it as cold and empty as his voice. Misao stopped laughing immediately, standing there in the middle of the room, suddenly awkward and alone. 

She nodded, swallowing, twisting her fingers in the material of her scarf.

"That'll be all," he said, his attention now completely on the yellow envelopes awaiting him on his desk. He probably didn't even know that she was there.

She nodded again, turning and running from the cold emptiness of the room, her feet leaving wet footprints on the already damp carpet.

The governess would be here on Sunday morning, and would begin lessons on Monday. Which was fine, because Misao wouldn't be too disappointed – there would be no more snow by then; it was already melting – and she'd be spared the anti-climax that would come after having looked forward to the winter for weeks and months on end.

That's how he'd planned it, anyway. 

It was Saturday today, and Omasu and Okon had had the lady in the village send up some dresses for Misao to try on. He didn't know why they had taken so long, considering the fact that they had been ordered two months ago, but he let it go – he didn't know much about these things. He supposed they thought this would cheer her up, but he doubted it. Misao didn't like dresses, anyone could tell.

Misao. He'd said that. He'd called her that. No '-san' at the end, no respect in his tone. Just a simple, straightforward – command, almost. It couldn't be called a scolding, not in his opinion. Just a sharp – he didn't know. But the point was … Misao. He'd said Misao. To her. As if he knew her. As if he had a right not to be polite around her. Which, even though he was her legal guardian and everything, he didn't. It was simple etiquette – and you didn't let go of simple etiquette until you knew the other person really, really well … and sometimes not even then.

And … Good God, he counted the number of words in his conversations!

Now that he thought of it, it was something he'd always done, ever since he took up this work, even before that. Just an unconscious way of remembering whether his speaking abilities had improved at all over every conversation.

God, he was pathetic.

This was something that was going to be corrected. He had to be in Paris next Friday, and he'd make sure he counted nothing while he was there. Nothing. He wouldn't even add up his hotel bill. And no more Misao-ing. It'd be Misao-_san­._ Always.

~*~

A/N: Sorry about the late update … I'm in the middle of my O-Levels and an unhealthy Buffy the Vampire Slayer obsession (where was I these past four years, you ask?) and that's not exactly conducive to writing this fic … hopefully I'll be faster once my exams finish …


	9. 9

_Author Notes:_ I'm really, really sorry for the amount of time it's taken to get this out, and though I don't blame you for not believing this, it honestly wasn't my fault. See, I had most of this written … all the way to chapter 16, with only a couple more to go … and I was in full flow, you know … and then … I'm not quite sure _how_ it happened, and _why_ it happened, but all my MS Word files got wiped … And, well, after that I just couldn't force myself to write the same thing all over again, and its taken me two months to resign myself to redoing this – trying to keep the basics the same and the writing totally different, 'cause I didn't even remember what was supposed to happen in this chapter, and I'm beyond rewriting the very same thing – where's the fun in that?

Basically, I'm really sorry.

~*~

_I was waiting on a different story._

Kaoru's younger brother was the most bloody rebellious teenager she'd ever met, especially considering he wasn't even a teenager. Having met Megumi and Kaoru and Tsubame, and even Himura – one of Kaoru's freeloaders – Misao'd thought that Yahiko couldn't be quite as bad as Kaoru made out. 

Apparently, he was.

"So," she said.

He glared, banged his heels against the table legs, and continued pretending to be deaf.

"So," she tried again, kicking her own legs as she sat on the tabletop. 

He gripped the wooden staff he held and swung it around threateningly. She had visions of her head being crushed like a watermelon beneath it.

She tried a third time. "So. Do you – uh – like Misselthwaite Manor?"

At least he spoke. "No."

"No?"

"No."

"You don't think it's – um – nice and spacious? And set in a really nice place? And not all that dank and depressing after all?"

"No."

As a rule, she wasn't the type who sat around with people and attempted to make friends, but hey, there was never a new face to see in the manor, and Yahiko was Kaoru's ten-year-old brother and she always seemed to get along pretty well with boys of that age – whether she herself was five or sixteen.

"Do you go to school?"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

Okay, this was getting redundant. She scratched her head and kicked her heels some more, accidentally banging them against his and getting the glare of death in return. "Why the hell not?" she said. Slight swearing generally broke the ice. So did gutting people with her kunai.

He looked a little uncomfortable now, and glanced around shiftily before saying, "Kaoru can't afford it."

"Oh," she said. "That's great."

He glanced at her as if he suddenly saw chocolate pouring out of her ears. "Yeah. It is."

"Wish Ao – Shinomori-san couldn't afford governesses either. But _no_, I have to sit through five hours of lecturing every single day … just get off on weekends, like now, and trust him to leave for France so I can't even go and complain about the timings …"

The boy smirked, spiky hair standing up even straighter. "I don't have to do nothing all day."

It was great that he was talking, but this one-up-manship was something she didn't like at all. "That's exactly what I used to do for all these months," she said, paused, then clarified, "Nothing, I mean. I did nothing."

"I still do nothing," pointed out Yahiko, with awful truth. 

That one she really couldn't beat, so she snapped, "I spent many more years doing nothing than you did, you brat."

"Oh, don't worry, _weasel girl_, Kaoru'll never be able to afford for me to do anything, so I'll spend the rest of my life without any studying, and you can't ever beat that, 'cause you already _are_ studying."

"W-weasel girl?! How dare – "

"You called me 'brat'!"

"You _are_ a brat! You're _way_ too obnoxious for a ten-year-old – "

"Well, you do look like a weasel! Especially with all your hair braided back like that – what is _with_ that sniveling look? My sisters are always doing it."

"Had a peek at your own hair lately? Looks like a frozen porcupine's sittin' on your head – "

"You seen Sanosuke? Streetfighter type, one of our boarders – not that they pay, 'cause Sano thinks just living there's stressful enough, but – seen him? Now _that's_ hair to see."

Distracted from the criticism of her own hair, which _was_ a little tightly pulled back today – she'd tied it wet, and so none of the usual haphazard locks fell around her face – she said, "Nah. Seen Himura – thought maybe his hair was fake or something … any ideas?"

Yahiko chortled. "Fake? Kenshin's hair? God, no! All the smiles and general stupidity, yeah, less than skin deep, but the hair – not at all." There was a pause. "He's a lot like Mr. Shinomori, Kenshin."

She blinked. "Didn't see much of Himura, but he was definitely _not_ like Aoshi-sama!"

He waved a hand vaguely, the staff whizzing past her nose and making her jerk backwards quickly. "Well, they're both not – there – you know, when they're talking to you. Like Shinomori's all cold and cut-off and do-my-bidding-or-die, and Kenshin's all smiley and idiotic and that's not who they are at all, not really … and God you must be really thick not to get what I meant."

"Didn't think you were deep enough to ever think of anything like that." 

"Shouldn't've said it – it's not like you're capable of actually understanding it, weasel girl – "

"Shinomori's on his way – think maybe you two should clear out," said a new voice.

"Don't call me that, you little freak – "

"Weasel girl, weasel girl, weasel – "

"Hey! Yahiko! And – uh – the girl with him! Shinomori's back, on his way up, don't think he'd be very happy to see you two sitting on one of his sidetables right here in the middle of the hall. So scram."

She turned around to look at the source of the voice and was confronted with mud-spattered clothing and chocolate-brown eyes. "Who're you?" she said suspiciously.

"Name's Sanosuke – Kaoru's freeloader?"

"Oh yeah …"

"You're Shinomori's ward, aren't you? Thought you'd be a little taller – less weaselly – well, come on, get out of here. He's going to have a fit if he catches you here, Yahiko," he added, leaning forward towards the boy. "And don't know much about how Shinomori treats you, girl, but it'd be no more than the preservation of your innocent mind if you got out of here too."

She blinked. "Less _weaselly_ – ?"

Sanosuke grabbed Yahiko by the back of his collar and started carrying him, kicking and screaming, towards the kitchens, turning his head to call over his shoulder, "It's the hair!"

Kunai. That's what she wanted. Wanted her kunai, wanted to saw that idiot's rooster-like mop off, wanted to gut him like a fish … She reached around for something, anything, to throw at Sanosuke's retreating back, her hand coming in contact with the smooth surface of a glass vase. Her fingers closed around it; she lifted it up, face contorted in a snarl, taking aim, ready to throw – 

"That cost quite a bit of money, Misao."

It was like the proverbial bucket of cold water had just been upended over her head. She made a strangled noise that sounded horribly like, "Eeep," and let go of the vase immediately. Let go in midair. It hurtled towards the ground, and she saw his hand stretch out in unbelievable slow-motion and catch it inches from the carpeted floor. 

"Eep," she said again.

He straightened and set it back on the table on which she was sitting. She wanted to jump off immediately, but for that she'd have to scoot away from the vase and risk banging into him as he leaned over her, or just slide off right there and risk knocking the vase down again. So she sat. Sat and blushed.

He adjusted the vase a little, looked caught between amusement and annoyance – as far as he ever looked caught between anything. She knew it was her cue to talk – to apologise – to explain – but her mouth refused to form any words. 

"Don't sit on the table," he said. 

Visions of Sanosuke smirking flashed through her head, jerking her brain into coherency. "I – I'm really sorry, honestly I am, but it wasn't my fault, not really – it was that Yahiko – he's such a _brat_ – and – and Sanosuke – !"

"I fail to see what Yahiko being a brat has to do with you sitting on the table."

"Argh!" she said, banging her heels against the table legs and almost upsetting the vase again. "Not the sitting, the vase – the vase throwing …" She petered off suddenly, gulping. "I – I'm sorry about _that_. I didn't mean to … it just happened … and it probably wouldn't've broken anyway, ne?" she finished hopefully, eyes wide. 

She thought he sighed. "It's made of glass, Misao. Of course it would have."

"H-Hai …" she said, unconscious of her lapse.

There was a pause, in which he just stood there in front of her, and she sat there on the table, her back inches from the wall, her mind searching for something to say, wondering why he just didn't leave and hoping desperately that he wouldn't. 

"S-So," she managed, after a while. "You're – uh – back."

He didn't say anything. She kicked herself mentally – that remark really didn't deserve a response. She went on, cheeks hot, "As in, back. Early. You're back early. Why?" She stopped for a second, thought about how that sounded, and amended quickly, "Not that I don't _want_ you to be back early – 'cause I do, really, it's just – how come?"

"My work was finished," he said.

Obviously, she thought to herself. And suddenly she realised that her brain was still not working fast enough, and he really didn't need to be standing all that close anymore, and the proper thing for her to do would be to lean back a little – but, God, she didn't want to move away at all – 

"Right. Yeah. Of course. I'll talk to you later, then? 'Cause, you know, I have things to do – governesses to talk to – of course, it's the weekend, so she's not here, but there's always the – uh – possibility … and I _really_ need to talk to you about the timings, by the way – "

"Later, then," he agreed, thankfully cutting her off. She thought maybe his eyes smiled, but she could never be sure – cool grey and glinting, as usual … but maybe he was amused? Maybe he wasn't angry? Maybe he felt – _something_?

He nodded at her and continued up the stairs, shedding his travelling coat as he went. And she sat there next to the painted vase and wondered whether he'd ever stop making her feel embarrassed. And … well, she had no words for what else he made her feel.

Sanosuke was different. Like Himura, Kaoru's other freeloader, was different. They were both differently different, that was all, but different nonetheless.

She couldn't really pin it down. It wasn't because they were both Japanese and stuck out a mile in the middle of a crowded street, or because of Himura's strange scar and the sword that hung at his side. It wasn't because of Sanosuke's blood-red bandana or Himura's long hair. There was just something else about them, the way there was something about Aoshi – _Yahiko was so right_ – that was different.

She liked Sanosuke, though. He wasn't up at the manor much – she'd only seen him that one time – but when he was he seemed more at home than she did. She walked in on him much later in the kitchen, gnawing on a leg of mutton, feet up on the stone countertop opposite. Omasu and Okon, who'd lectured her incessantly about the wrongness of having her feet higher than foodstuffs whenever she'd tried something like this, hovered around him, giggling, pouring him mugs of ale and loading his plate with roast potatoes.

She hadn't ever seen an expression of disgust equal to the one which adorned Yahiko's face as he sat next to Sanosuke.

Noticing her, Yahiko nudged him and said in a disgruntled voice, "Look. Weasel girl's still alive. Shinomori caught her, and she's still alive."

Sano looked up, raised an eyebrow, and shrugged. "Favouritism," he mumbled.

"Gah!" said Yahiko, sounding scarily like Kaoru.

Maneuvering his tongue around a mouthful of potato, Sanosuke said, "Jus' savin' your skin, Yahiko-chan. Shinomori would've had you cut, quar'ered, and hanged if he saw you five feet from his precious vases, yeah?" The last bit was directed at Okon and Omasu, who nodded in unison. Yahiko rolled his eyes and muttered something nobody could quite catch.

She talked to both of them for hours – at least for as long as it took Kaoru and Tsubame to work their way through the entire mansion. She found out that Kenshin and Sanosuke had left Japan together, for reasons that got lost in stuffed mouthfuls of meat and vegetable. She learnt that Yahiko had a 'thing' for Tsubame and that Sano had a far greater 'thing' for Megumi. She found out that her own 'thing' was painfully transparent to them both. 

She heard about Kenshin and Kaoru, about their special brand of angst and unhappiness, about the days of laundry and laughter and the nights of loneliness and worry. She heard about Japan, heard about sakura trees and nausea-inducing ships, reminisced about snowfall in Kyoto. She spoke Japanese, pure and undiluted, after so very long, and it was so nice to hear it from another mouth again, to hear Sanosuke talk about the most mundane things in _her_ language, and God, she never knew she missed it so much … there was something about Japanese, something that just couldn't be expressed, couldn't be conveyed, in English, at least not to her.

And she extracted an invitation to Kaoru's from them, and a promise to give her a tour of the town – a far better trip than the few shops she passed by when they went down for dresses and cloth. And when they left – 

"See ya, weasel girl – "

"So long, Roosterhead!"

 – she carried with her the memory of warm brown eyes and spiky hair, and that strange cared-for feeling she used to have back home, with Jiya – but not quite. This weird, uncomplicated feeling of being _liked_. Unforced. Not tolerated because she was a ward, or because it was a duty to serve her – but just for _her_. Because Sano and Yahiko didn't _have_ to talk to her, didn't _have_ to take her around town, but they did, and they would. 

Because Aoshi-sama _had_ to endure her, and Omasu and Okon _had_ to be nice to her.

And who knew whether it was real?

"Aoshi-sama?"

"Hm?"

"Are you busy?"

"Yes."

"I – I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For the vase."

"Ah."

"That didn't sound good."

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"No, it didn't sound good."

"Y-Yeah … and about that day, before you left. Sorry for – uh – dripping snow all over your carpet – and – and not letting you speak – and – yeah …"

"Ah."

"That didn't sound good either."

"No."

"What, no?"

"No, it didn't."

She suddenly broke out in a grin, her nervously twisting fingers coming to rest on her lap. He gave her his Smile Look, the one which allowed the room to be cheery and blue-grey to be a warm colour instead of dead and cold. No change in his expression, but that didn't bother her. She liked him as he was, wouldn't want him to start singing when he was happy or shouting when he wasn't. Not that she wouldn't mind a _smile_, now and then …

"And, you know, the governess? She's not so bad."

And there was the look she loved, the one where his eyes crinkled that tiny little bit, the look which made her think that this was it, this was the day – made her think that the smile she was after was just about to break out any minute. 

"Is that so?" he said.

"Uh-huh," she said emphatically. "But could we have – fewer – hours in a day? Because this is _way_ too much, it's illegal, I think, can't possibly be allowed – "

"Don't you spend just – five hours?"

"_Just_? That's my entire day! I mean, it gets dark by four – it's winter, hello – and it's really not fair … Can't we just cut back on one hour? Please?"

He shook his head, dark hair falling into his eyes. She wondered vaguely why he didn't get it chopped off. She would hate it if he did that, but it was what practicality demanded … "No."

"But _why_?"

"The longer you spend studying, the less time you spend throwing priceless Chinese vases around."

She reddened, both in anger and – _was that teasing?_ – embarrassment. "Hey, I didn't know it was a priceless Chinese vase!"

He just looked at her, and she spluttered and said, "Not that that makes it okay to throw it, I know, I'm not saying that, and I _said_ I was sorry, and I am, and – please can we make it four hours a day?"

"No."

She left seething, hating everything about him – his stubbornness, his stupid hair, his dumb blank face … loving the quirk of his eyebrow, the planes of his face, the way his hair fell into his eyes … 

She wasn't really up to analyzing the contradictions, thank you very much.

~*~


	10. 10

_This time I'm mistaken ._

~*~

It's quiet. 

It hadn't been this quiet for months, for years, he was sure, not since that just-another winter day his father had died, that day he'd come home from university and gone up the stairs listening to the absolute silence in the house, the sounds of his footsteps lost in the plush carpeting of the stairs. 

He hadn't known that silence could be so loud.

It felt like that as he walked up the staircase today, felt quiet and so very empty. The silence rebounded off the walls, echoed back at him, empty, empty, empty. As if no one else breathed in this house except for him, no one lived in this house except for him. 

And that hadn't been true ever since Misao came.

She wasn't here. He understood then, in that second, what the problem was. She wasn't anywhere around here, anywhere close by. The house was empty, devoid of everything that he'd gotten so used to over the past few months - and he'd never known she had so much _presence_ in the house - hadn't known that the disorderliness he both liked and resented at the same time was so much a part of his life now - 

"Okon!" he called, his voice warring for domination with the oppressive silence.

There was no answer. Quiet, everywhere. Both Okon and Omasu were usually up by now, by the time he got back from his morning walk . but today there was no one. And he was really very used to someone or the other coming running at his call.

Where could she be, this early in the morning? He didn't bother to specify to himself which 'she' he meant, continuing up the stairs. He worked his legs harder, almost stamping - he'd create sound, he'd do it, just watch him - _thump, thump -_ all muffled, far too muffled. 

The corridor to his room seemed uncommonly long, the early morning light and the dark carpeting making it dim and fuzzy as he walked. There was something strangely otherworldly to it all, today - dull and misty and not quite defined . . . and _so_, _so quiet_. He pushed open his door; it did not creak.

Answers lay on his desk, in the form of a cooling breakfast tray and a small pink - _Pink paper? Where on earth did Omasu find pink paper? - _note attached to it. He strode forward and picked it up, the curving handwriting blurring a little as he struggled to make it out by the light filtering into his room from the chinks in the curtains.

Apparently he'd given Misao permission to go down to the working girl's - what was her name again? - Kaoru, yes - house sometime during the past week, and though he couldn't for the life of him remember when (and that was his _job_, damn it) and that was where Okon and Omasu had taken her, packed her off early so that she could be back before dark. 

And she better be back before dark, in his opinion, because otherwise . . . 

Because otherwise the house would be empty all day, and he'd be so very alone, sitting here in the dim light with the shadows twining themselves around his brain again, pulling him down deeper and deeper into the mire of darkness he'd always lived in, ever since his mother died, and he didn't want that, not again, not when he'd tasted, so very briefly, what it was like to _not_ be there, down in the dark, swamped in misery and loneliness . . . 

He shook his head, a sudden, abrupt motion to derail his train of thought. It was just a day, for God's sake. One whole morning to spend without her anywhere around. It wasn't that big a deal. Sit, get some work done, have a bit of peace and quiet for a change - 

_Quiet. So very quiet._

He yanked open the curtains - for purely practical reasons: he had to read - _not_ because it made the room that much more cheerful. Seating himself at the desk, he flipped through the envelopes that had been placed there last evening, tossing a couple away and busying himself with the rest.

He was sure the scratch of his pen echoed all the way down the hallway.

~*~

He could count on one hand the number of times he'd been this worried. There was that time when he was four - which he barely remembered, but he knew it had happened - and he'd gotten lost in the middle of a busy London street, and he'd thought he'd never see his parents ever again. And then when his mother was ill - that memory topped all, and it only covered his second finger. He remembered that day after Megumi . there was less worry in that than frightened sadness, but it still counted. Oh, and always the day where he thought maybe his father wouldn't send him to university, but right now that too seemed a minor event compared with what he was facing.

The driveway was empty.

Well, it was empty most of the year - the two carriages they owned were parked back near the empty stables, in a walled-in porch that was almost like those modern garages people had in fashionable houses in the city. They were only brought around to the front when he needed to go somewhere, or maybe Okon and Omasu were headed down to village. Or when somebody was returning to the manor.

Which somebody very noticeably wasn't.

He'd been pacing the hallway for what seemed like hours, ever since the sun set and darkness settled over the moors, lending them the ghost-like quality that had been prevalent in the house all day. And now, with the needle of his watch gravitating closer and closer to nine o'clock, he had gravitated closer and closer to the front door, finally ending up standing in the open doorway, a lone figure silhouetted by dull yellow light coming from within the hall, provided by a single flickering candle.

The driveway extended before him, a long stretch of paved road and overgrown weeds, ending at the tall cast-iron gates, slightly flaked with rust. The road wound through the moors beyond that, dipping down the small rise Misselthwaite Manor was built on. Empty. 

Quiet, and empty.

His mind's eye pictured the worst possibilities, the carriage Okon or Omasu (_Misao - _) were in held up by highwaymen, bandits, all of them bound and helpless . . . he could imagine Misao's eyes widening in fear, and they were already so _wide_ - 

_Oh, shut up._

He blinked a little at his own mental chiding - that had been a little more exasperated than he usually sounded when he talked to himself.

Usually. Talked to himself. He really needed help.

And the driveway loomed before him, empty and quiet, nothing but the wind rustling through the long grass of the moors, cold wind that stung his face and brought the blood to his cheeks in response, giving him more colour than he usually had. He wondered, absently, what Misao - and Okon and Omasu - would think when they got back, when they saw him standing there, flushed with anger - maybe, how were they to know? - and glowering down at them from the doorway, looking so much the family tyrant, the restrictive father, the overprotective older brother . . .  the harsh master . . . 

Master. Was that what he was, for all of them? Someone who ruled them all, who ordered them around, who they talked about in hushed whispers and frightened tones? 

He remembered when that was just how it was - with his father, and with his grandfather before him, or so his mother had said. And he remembered that that was how it was supposed to be for him, too. But it just  . . .  wasn't. Right?

Right?

He was different, wasn't he? Omasu and Okon respected him, maybe, but they weren't _scared_ of him, were they? They didn't _hate_ him, did they?

Misao wasn't scared of him.

Was she?

He remembered, too, a day, perhaps not more than a year ago, when he wouldn't have cared whether they hated him or not, whether the world hated him or not - because a year ago, he was convinced that it did, and he hated it right back. But now, it mattered. They all mattered. Their opinion mattered.

Misao mattered.

That was a scary thought, one he did his best to push away, but it was kind of hard to rid his mind of that when he was standing outside on a freezing January evening, numbness lurking at the tips of his fingers, waiting for her carriage to roll up and her voice to call out a greeting.

After a while his legs got tired and he sat down on the steps at the front of the house, trenchcoat protecting him from the frost that lined the stone. He put his head in his hands, cold fingers skimming through cool hair, and thought about all the nights he was away from home, off on business, wondered why he never worried about her this way then, when he had no idea where she was and what she was doing and how late she was out of the house doing it.

That was because then he wasn't waiting for her all day. 

Slowly, the wind picked up, the cold became more intense. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, eventually gave up and resorted to sitting on them in a futile effort to generate some heat. He wondered why he'd come out without his gloves, berated himself strongly for it, and didn't bother to even think about going and getting them. The wind worked its way inside his skull, down his collar, froze him to the bone. He thought about hypothermia and Misao, and found it funny.

Not enough to laugh, though.

So when he finally heard the voices, he thought it was all part of his imagination. Thought he heard Misao laughing, other voices joining in, a deeper male voice relating a tale of some sort. But no sound of trundling wheels, no light suddenly glaring in his eyes because of the lanterns strung on the front of the carriages. So he kept his eyes shut and his fingers barely warm, and listened.

"Oh, come _on_, Sano, that just can't be true!"

"It is, it is! Honestly! Kenshin just swung backwards, that's all, and the sword moved all on its own - I've never seen anything like it - c'mon, Kenshin, tell her how you did it - "

"It was just luck, Misao-dono - "

"Just luck, my ass! It was just genius, more like. So amazing, really, weasel girl - "

_Sano_? he thought sluggishly. 

The voices came closer, and he picked out five sets of footsteps, only one heavy enough to classify as a man's. Maybe another - sure and firm, but very light. Swordsman, said his head immediately. Himura, it added after a second. He nodded at his head - God, he should've gotten out of the cold much earlier - and cracked his eyes open.

There they were, right at the gates, the tall dark-haired man tugging at one while the redhead worked at the other. He recognized them both - both by surname, and both by association with Kaoru. Who was there too, long hair bound up in a handkerchief, wrapped in a moth-eaten old coat that most definitely belonged to someone else once upon a time. And the little kid - the one Misao thought was a brat. And, of course, Misao herself, almost invisible under many layers of warm clothing. 

And gloves, he noted proudly. He felt very proud. Because of the gloves.

Help. He needed help.

She saw him first, saw him sitting there bonelessly on the front steps, and she came running, scarf trailing behind her, only flashes of her thin form visible in the light that came from the open doorway. She skidded to a stop in front of him - literally skidded, her feet flailing for purchase on the frosty pavement for a minute before she regained her balance. She looked up at him, wide eyes - so wide, took up half her face, blue and green and aquamarine, and he was rhyming and this could not be good - and said breathlessly, "Aoshi-sama! What're you doing here?"

_I live here_, was the first thing that went through his mind, but since his mind wasn't exactly saying all the right things at the right times, he managed, "Waiting."

"Oh," she said cluelessly. "For what?"

_You_. "You."

"Oh," she said again, and then the guilt struck. "Oh God, I'm so sorry, I never thought you'd actually, you know, not be working and - and busy - didn't think you'd be worried, you see . not that I think you don't care, because I'm sure you do, it's just - I thought you'd be working, and that if we spent a little more time it'd be okay, 'cause you wouldn't notice - " She paused, took a much-needed breath, and smiled brilliantly, "but I'm here now!"

If he were another man, he would have hugged her then, would have slid his arms around her and crushed her to him and never ever let her go, never ever let her be anywhere else, let her _look_ at anyone else, never let her think that she belonged anywhere else and damn the consequences . . . 

But he wasn't. He was who he was, but God, she was so close and so warm, and she was _here_, she was back, and the house wouldn't ever be so empty again, because she was here, with him, and he couldn't ask for more.

Couldn't want more.

Oh, but he did. 

~*~

Her room was a girl's room, Okon and Omasu had made sure of that, with the wide mirror attached to the dressing table and the frills hanging from the top of the four-poster bed. But it was different from what he expected it to be, too - no girly knick-knacks on the table, no embarrassing clothing scattered about the place. There was, absurdly enough, a pillow on the floor, and a blanket made out to look like a makeshift bed right next to the real bed itself, but he ignored that.

"Geez, you're cold, Aoshi-sama," she had said as she'd grabbed his hand and pulled him inside, and he'd been too shocked - and much too tempted - to protest. 

And now there he was, sitting on her bed - her bed! - because there was nowhere else to sit, apart from the tiny dressing table stool, and she was in the washing room attached, splashing water over her face and talking to him about her day. There was a candle in the room, one single candle, and he was very very aware of how absolutely alone they were. Which reminded him - 

"Where are Okon and Omasu?"

She poked her head out of the washroom, droplets dripping down her face. "I don't know. They said they might be spending the night in the village - thought you'd know the details."

"I don't," he said shortly. This was unacceptable. Sure, he didn't want to be hated, or feared, or anything, but at least _asked_ before two of his most trusted servants went on impromptu leave.

"Weird," she said, echoing his thoughts. There was the vigorous sound of nose-blowing, and then she appeared, all freshly scrubbed cheeks and excited eyes. "So how was your day, Aoshi-sama? Did you get any work done or did you spend all of it squatting in the doorway?"

He was insulted. Mildly. "I did not squat."

She laughed, came and sat down next to him with a flounce of her limited skirts. Her leg was inches from his, and he moved away unconsciously, even as his body screamed for closer contact. "Sorry for bothering you," she said sincerely, face upturned to his, and he felt that familiar tightening of disappointment. Of course she thought it was a bother. Because, by all accounts, it should be - and was. 

Right?

Of course she never thought of his relief, of his happiness, of everything that he'd felt when he'd seen her appear behind the gate. Because all that was just a _bother_, wasn't it, just something that someone like _him_ couldn't feel - 

"Aoshi-sama? Hey, Aoshi-sama? You still in there?"

"What?" he said, almost blinked.

"Kinda zoned out there," she said explanatorily. "You should really not do that . I mean, I'm sure it really puts off people who don't know you at all."

"Most of the time I don't know those people either, and so do not care."

She grinned. "Long sentence, and good point. It's tough to make yourself care. Like I don't care at all, and that makes it even harder to be cared about, and it's not fun not to be cared about."

"No, it's not," he said agreeably. She had a fallen eyelash just above her right cheekbone. He wanted to brush it away.

Wanted to touch her.

He looked down at her, at her open, trusting face and small lips, at the - whatever it was - shining in her eyes as she looked up, cheeks glowing, and the full reality of what he was thinking hit him with all the force of a sandbag over his head. Here he was, her guardian, her legal would-be parent (_not true, not true_) thinking . . .  oh God, so many things . . .  about her, and there she was, looking up at him with such trust in her eyes, in her face, and he couldn't do that to her, he wouldn't - wouldn't abuse her trust like that, wouldn't ever do that.

He blinked, and she blinked, and the moment shattered, lay about their feet in jagged little pieces of possibility. He glanced down at her once, just once more, took in every line and angle of her face, and pushed himself backwards, away from the bed, away from her, hoping against hope that all this wasn't as obvious to her as it was to him.

"I have to go," he said, and he hated that he sounded so cold, so impersonal.

She receded into herself immediately at the sound of his voice, the happy light fading from her eyes, replaced by confusion and slight disappointment. "Okay," she said uncertainly. "You - have things to do, right?"

_Oh, I wish_. "Yes," he lied, easily, quickly. He paused, managed, "I'm sorry." 

"That's okay," she said, a little more conviction in her voice now. "You need to catch up on all the work you missed while squatting."

And she smiled, looked up at him expectantly, searching for amusement, any reaction, but her half hopeful, half smiling look was heartbreaking, and he couldn't find anything for her, nothing to give her in return. "Good night, Misao," he whispered, and fled.

Because he was a failure at love, at all of this, a failure at building and maintaining relationships, at laughing and loving and _giving_, because he had absolutely nothing to offer her, nothing to give her . . . and God, when did all this become about love? What did he know about love, anyway? A couple of fumbles in the gardens ten years ago, a fierce protectiveness for his mother from when he was seven, a slight empathy for a stray dog that had wandered into the house when he was small.

That wasn't love.

What was it, then?

He didn't know. 

What he did know was that everything he felt now was _wrong_, was something that couldn't be dealt with. What he did know was that she _trusted_ him, and that meant everything.

He wasn't going to ruin that. Not ever.

~*~


	11. 11

_… for handing you a heart worth breaking._

~*~

She didn't get it.

A week ago, everything had been fine. She studied, she ate, she talked to Aoshi some, she studied, ate some more, ran around outside, slept, and it started all over again. And she was happy with it, happy doing it. He'd generally been in a good mood, Sano and Yahiko had been good friends to make, there was still snow on the grounds, and her governess didn't annoy her the way she could have. And now . . .

He was avoiding her. Again.

She'd really thought they were past that stage by now, past the part where he snuck around, doing his best not to bang into her in the corridors, and making sure he was never in his room whenever she was free. She'd really thought he wasn't going to lapse into that again. But no, she hadn't seen him since that day she'd spent at Kaoru's – oh, and that had been fun – except for a chance meeting as she came out of the kitchens a couple of days ago, where he had barely looked at her and hurried past without a word. 

She'd pulled out every recent memory of him and scrutinized them all diligently, and found nothing to account for all his oddness. Nothing she'd done, or said, or implied. She thought about him waiting outside for her that long, and couldn't figure out why; she thought about his sudden departure from her room that same night, and couldn't understand that either. But there were a lot of things she didn't understand about him, and she was used to overlooking them. 

"Miss Misao?"

"Hm?"

"I have a question."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. That meant get on with it."

"Oh, right. Okay."

"Kaoru …"

"No, sorry, just thinking. You know Kenshin, don't you? I mean, of course you know him, but … okay, Kenshin."

Misao paused, waited. "Yes. Kenshin."

"I like Kenshin."

Another beat of silence, then, "Yes, he's likeable enough. I like him too."

Kaoru gulped. "Not that like!"

"Oh." Misao blinked. "Sorry. I don't like him at all, in that case. Go on."

"He doesn't like me."

"Oh, I'm sure he does – "

"Not that like!"

She grinned in reply. "Yeah, I know – "

Kaoru glared at her from her position near the grate, where she sat blushing and making a mess on the carpet with the coals in her bucket. "Look, I . . . God, I don't even know why I'm asking you, it's not like you'd know anything about how to deal with this – "

"Hey!"

" – but I can't say anything to Sano or Yahiko, though I daresay they know already, prying blockheads that they are – and Megumi – she's my sister, I know, but she's such a flirt, my God, always hanging over Kenshin and I _know_ she's not serious and I know she knows I – like – him, but I just can't tell her . . . and Tsubame and all the rest . . . I mean, I'd be insane to even mention it to them …"

"Yeah, okay, okay, I get it, I'm your last choice. What do you want me to do?"

"See!" said Kaoru, chucking a lump of coal across the room. It left a black mark on the opposite wall. "I knew this was a bad idea."

Misao looked at her, at her uncomfortable posture and the tenseness in her fingers, at the worry in her eyes, and suddenly realised this was far more serious than she'd been taking it to be. Sure, she knew Kenshin and Kaoru were – just that, Kenshin and Kaoru, always going together, always mentioned at the same time, inseparably, but she never thought . . . never thought it wasn't a consummated relationship, wasn't something agreed upon and accepted and declared.

But she had absolutely no idea what to say.

"Look, um, Kaoru," she said, clearing her throat uncertainly, "at least . . . just try, okay? To tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing's _wrong_," said Kaoru venomously, as if the word wrong was the cause of all her troubles. "Everything's exactly as it was. Nice and normal and not _wrong_."

"Which is the problem," said Misao astutely.

"No, _really_?" said Kaoru, with uncharacteristic sarcasm. 

"I meant – "

"Of course that's the problem! I mean, we've been like that for ever and ever. It's always been 'Kaoru-dono this' and 'Kaoru-dono that' and _so_ protective in times of crisis or worry or anything, but the minute that's over, it's like he was never inches away – or never came close to even – "

"Uh, _okay_, not asking for the details!" she cut in hastily. 

Kaoru coughed, blushed, and stuttered to a stop. "It's just – we've been like this for as long as I can remember. Not sure of this, not sure of that, and what happens _now_? How do we – get on with it? I just don't know . . ."

Misao sat and watched her, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, unsure of what to say. Not sure how Kaoru would take any advice she had to give – if she had any to give at all, which she didn't, not at this point. Finally, she said, "I know he likes you. _That_ like."

She looked up at her, eyes bright but not surprised. "You think so? Really?"

"Definitely. It's obvious enough."

"Then why doesn't he _do_ anything about it?"

She didn't have an answer to that. Not really. "Well – maybe – maybe he thinks you don't, you know, feel the same way . . . or . . . or that what if he ruined your nice normalness if he made a move . . . or . . . well, for the same reason _you_ don't do anything about it."

Kaoru 'pfft'ed that easily enough. "I'm the _girl_," she said, as if that excused everything.

Misao was stumped by that one – it wasn't the reason _she_ wouldn't put herself forward, if she was in a situation like that, but if that was how Kaoru thought . . . "I think, from what I know of Himura, he's being noble and thinks he doesn't – deserve? – you … you know, the usual crap. Appreciable, maybe, 'cause it's nice to know the guy thinks so – it is, right? – but really frustrating when you get down to it."

Kaoru looked at her suspiciously. "Who gave you that speech?"

"Omasu."

"Thought so."

After a pause, Misao said, "But it makes sense, ne? 'Course, Omasu-san was using it in a totally different situation, but it . . . fits. Really fits Himura and his atonement spiel."

"Yeah," said Kaoru despondently. "I _know_. How do you snap him out of it, though? I mean, according to Sano – and yes, Sano has no second thoughts about talking to me even though I can't discuss this with him properly – he says he doesn't want to take advantage of my _trust_. Please!"

"Total crap," Misao sighed commiseratingly. "That's what I – Omasu – _I_! – mean. You've given him a pretty trusted position in your house, and in your head, and all . . . and . . . he doesn't want to spoil that?"

"Say it again, and more convincingly this time," said Kaoru cuttingly.

Misao grinned and went on, warming to her theory, "He thinks you trust him with all these things, and living near you, and so on . . . and he can't possibly ask for more . . . so he doesn't . . . oh, and – and he wants you to be young and live your life and be happy and he can't make you happy because he's so _old_ – how old is Himura, anyway? – and – "

"Stop making him sound like some romantic hero," snapped Kaoru, hands on her hips, but she didn't protest the way she could have – in fact, she seemed pretty taken with the thought of it.

Misao laughed, continued, "And he's probably imagining living by your side all your life, watching you get married, loving your children as if they were his own – "

"Misao!"

"Doing laundry with you, because your tyrannical husband doesn't help out, he sits and drinks and makes your life miserable, but Himura – ah, Himura will be your only comfort, your only source of love and what it means to be _alive_ – " She broke off, caught by a flying pillow in the face, the rest of her words lost in a mouthful of goose feathers. 

"Write a book, why don't you!" shrieked Kaoru, another pillow at the ready.

She emerged from the pillow cascade laughing, and by the time Kaoru left, the room was a much bigger mess than it had been when she'd come in to clean it.

~*~

"Knock, knock."

"It's open."

"I can see that. Can I come in?"

"If you want."

She shut the door behind her when she came, heading straight for the drawn drapes in his room. He was sitting at his desk, a sliver of light pouring in from the gap in the curtains – which she'd now thrown fully open – onto the papers he was going through.

"Can I do anything for you?" he said after a second.

"Um . . . noo . . . are you busy?"

"Yes."

"Oh well." She perched herself on the armrest of the chair on the other side of his desk, grinning widely. "I was bored, thought I'd come and talk to you. _To_ you, get it?" She half-laughed, caught his stony expression and stopped. "Okay, not funny. But it's not my joke – Omasu's. And – uh – don't fire her for it, will you?"

Getting no response – and, honestly, expecting none – she went on, "Hadn't seen you in days, so I thought I'd just come up and . . . you know . . . talk." She couldn't help laughing again, but it was short-lived and high-pitched. "So . . . uh . . . what're you working on?"

"It's confidential."

"I'm confident."

"Misao."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, okay. Universe-destroying secret, I'm sure . . . don't want me to know, because who knows, _I'd_ blow up the world . . ."

"Who knows," he agreed, dropping his head back to his work. 

"You were supposed to argue with that," she pointed out, determined to get him to talk – to talk the awkwardness out, the avoidance, if nothing else.

His voice was distant, inattentive. "Mm-hm . . ."

"Aoshi-sama!" 

She hadn't thought she'd actually reached across and snatched the paper out of his hands, but there she was, holding a suspiciously torn-looking sheet full of typing in one hand, and staring down into his eyes – wide, surprised eyes – at the same time. _Surprised? _Actually_ surprised?_

"You've ripped it," he said, and his voice was not quite as calm as always.

"G-Gomen! I didn't mean to! It just – that is – it's your fault!"

"You tore my work."

"You were being annoying!"

"You _tore_ my work."

"You asked for it! And besides, I didn't mean to – "

"Give it to me." If she didn't know better, she'd have thought he mumbled. 

She handed it back to him, red-faced with both anger and embarrassment. "It's not _that_ badly torn," she said, in what she hoped was an apologetic voice. She pointed towards the edge of the paper, where a few words had been lost in what was anything but a neat tear. "I'm sure you can just pin it back together . . . or . . . something . . ."

He looked as if he was going to say something, but instead he just shook his head helplessly and started placing the two pieces of paper back together. _He _could_ be angrier_, she mused hopefully, watching how he adjusted the paper, eyes narrowed and not-so-icy blue. 

"You haven't lost me the code, at least," he said in a voice that told her that she might not still be living in this house if she had, indeed, lost him the code.

"Ah," she said, in a voice that said she understood completely. "That's good then."

He didn't answer, which made her think that maybe in his opinion her not living here might not be such a bad thing. She looked at him fit the sheet together, then pull out a thin, velvet-covered folder and place it carefully inside, putting the folder away for future usage. 

"I didn't mean to do it," she said.

He nodded, steepling his fingers. Classic lecture stance. 

"You just weren't listening." She meant to make it sound matter-of-fact, normal, and just that tiny bit sorry . . . she thought it came out whiny and annoyed.

"My work is not a joke, Misao." Ah, here it came. "It is not a vase that can be replaced, or a dress that can be stitched back together." How did he know she tore her skirt from hip to knee yesterday? "I expect you to understand that, and to respect that."

She said, "Hai, Aoshi-sama," just to put him off.

"If I don't get this done, there will eventually be no food on the table. If my standard drops, there will – "

"I know _that_ part of the speech!" She rolled her eyes. "God, you sound just like Kaoru yelling at Yahiko!"

That one really should have unnerved him, but all he said was, "Maybe that is because Kaoru understands responsibility and you do not."

"_Yahiko_ does not."

He didn't correct himself, which only made her fume. She looked at him picking up a fountain pen, tip shining in the light, studying it carefully, and it suddenly occurred to her that there was something almost – satisfied – about him. Something almost joyful, despite the fact that he'd delivered a very convincing speech _and_ that she'd just ripped up the paper he was working on.

"You felt like tearing that up, didn't you?" she said, with awed realisation.

And there it was again, that look where his eyes half-closed in preparation for the smile that never ever came, but the one she waited for anyway, where there were little wrinkles around his mouth and laughter in his eyes – it was there, she knew it – it was going to come out any second now, and his face would break and the stoniness would disappear …

"Let's just say I'm not as angry as I could be," he said, voice expressionless.

She grinned, widely, opened her mouth to say something along the lines of 'I knew it!' and that he was just shallow and emotional like she was, wanting to vent frustration on a piece of paper, but he preempted her.

"Which does _not_ mean that my work is unimportant, or to be shredded every time a code cannot be broken." There was seriousness here, and slight iciness too, and she needed to assure him that she got it, because he was right, and he needed to know she thought that. 

"But shredding is good for the soul," is what came out.

"Misao – "

"Don't worry. Your work is not cheese."

He blinked, and let it go. Leaning back in his chair, he touched the tip of the pen with his fingers, and watched the blue dot of ink spread into the invisible ridges on the pad of his thumb. She thought about what to say next, now that he showed no sign of pulling out another document and dismissing her without glance or word, but somehow her mind was empty of all conversation, focused only on the spreading ink-stain on his hand, on the skin that wasn't actually that far away, only a couple of feet – the expanse of the desk between them.

"Have you had lunch?"

"Kind of."

"Have you had lunch, Misao?"

"Yes."

"But you're hungry again."

"Yes."

He put the fountain pen down, and her eyes tracked the drop of ink quivering on its tip all the way from the shining silver to the carpeted floor. _Nice hands_, she thought dumbly, as he got up and went to the door, calling for Okon. She listened to Okon's running footsteps, and to his voice asking for two trays sent up for lunch immediately, instead of the one that would be sent half an hour later, and thought of how unacceptable this was, sitting here ready to talk and make pointless conversation just for the heck of it, and instead thinking about the fact that he had nice hands . . . and that the ink-stain was pretty, all blue and spreading on his skin . . . so slowly . . .

"How are your lessons going?" he asked, when he sat down again, and she answered quickly, because him starting a conversation was a novelty.

"Not so bad. Languages are disgusting . . . _why_ do I need to learn French? I can barely speak English! And mathematics isn't quite so horrible, because I keep thinking about money and it makes me feel better . . . but . . . all these books I'm expected to read . . . I just don't see the point."

He looked thoughtful, for a moment, before he said, "Have you been to the library here?"

She blinked. "There's a library here?"

"Yes. It's on the third floor . . . just above this room, actually. There's a huge collection of books, some of which even you might not mind reading."

"I mind reading all kinds," she told him honestly, and she thought maybe his face fell, just slightly. She hurried to explain, "I just don't get the point. I don't get involved, I don't care to read something about people I don't know, and don't want to know, and places I'll never see, and things I've never heard of. And even if I have . . . it's just someone's story. I don't care about them."

He nodded, accepting her viewpoint, and she said, "You like reading, don't you?"

"Yes." His answer was immediate, his eyes slightly faraway. "For me . . ." His voice faded away, and she was sure he wasn't going to tell her what it was like for him, why books mattered to him, that he was just going to close up and fade away, but his voice strengthened and he went on, though he didn't look at her, "For me, those people and those places are sometimes the only things that are real. Sometimes those are the only people I care about, and the only people that care about me. The books . . . they . . . all of them, everything in them, is mine. They belong to me."

She wanted to laugh at him, make some joking comment about obsessive-compulsive urges and fob it off. But he was so serious, and he was _telling _her this, and she hadn't even poked and prodded like she sometimes did, and his voice was low and deep and he built a world when he spoke, built books and people and _reality_, and she realized that her father with his droning voice and his lectures of education had known nothing about books, about reading, _cared_ nothing about books, and that she learnt they were things to be read and despised . . . not loved and believed in, like he did. She didn't know books could be real, books could matter like this, but there it was, in his eyes, in the half-surfacing dreams she could see in his face. 

"Which is your favourite?" she asked, trying to keep her voice low, like his. "'Cause I'll read that."

He opened his mouth, and this time she didn't doubt that he would tell her. But his lips remained parted for the longest time, and nothing came out, until finally there was almost a smirk – she'd seen him smirk before, and though his lips curved, there was nothing like a smile about it, no amusement, just dry cynicism that scared her – and he said, "I doubt you would enjoy it." 

She looked down, feeling as if she had given the wrong answer to something she knew by heart, as if she was supposed to pass a test that she'd never realised was one. Some part of her wanted to cry, some part was angry, and the rest was just disappointed, staring at the dark brown of her skirt as if it held all the mysteries of his head.

And then he said, voice quiet, "But there are some books you could try on the shelves on the right wall – the library isn't difficult to navigate, you'll know what I mean when you get to it." Another pause, then, "I like some of those."

She was surprised she didn't gasp out loud. This was – amendment. This was a put-down – not quite, but she had thought it was – and something that could almost be an apology, coming from someone like him. As if he regretted rebuffing her attempt at – what was it? Friendship? She didn't think so – and wanted to make it up to her. 

"I will!" she said, nodding vigorously. "Though – if I'm really slow – you won't mind, will you, Aoshi-sama?" 

He shook his head, picking up the fountain pen again, and she cut her eyes sharply from it to his face, where she kept them fixed. Her thoughts went all strange if his hands moved like that, so soft and slow, and the way the skin pressed in where the silvery tip rested against his fingers . . . 

He was telling her that Charles Dickens didn't drag as much as she thought he did if she would actually listen to what he was trying to say rather than the story he was telling and she was arguing that she had no idea what the difference between both was when Okon came in with a tray balanced on each hand, the smell of steaming meat coming off both. She looked at them both and grinned, "My, my, Misao-chan. A literary conversation. I never would have expected it of you."

She stuck out her tongue at her. "You just walked in on my first _mention_ of a book," she said.

Aoshi opened his mouth, and then shut it again as if he had never meant to say anything when Okon arched an eyebrow at Misao and Misao glared right back. "Whatever you say, Misao-chan," said Okon coolly, then winked so broadly at Aoshi that Misao choked on the stew she'd raised to her mouth. 

Grinning, Okon was chased out by incoherent screaming and a red face.

~*~

She wasn't the kind of person who indulged in self-analysis, not usually. She didn't lie in bed after the day was over and think about everything she'd done and everything people had said and what horrible thing she planned never to do again. She lay, stared at the ceiling, and thought about tomorrow. She was the kind of person, Jiya said, who _always _thought about tomorrow. He called it foresight, her mother had called it optimism, and she herself called it planning. 

She thought, today, that her mother might have the right of it.

Tonight was different. Everything just seemed slightly off, tonight. She'd changed, but the nightdress scratched against her skin oddly, and she felt all tight inside, as if she hadn't had enough exercise today and there was something _missing_ before she could go to sleep. The candle on her bedside table – she still slept on the floor, but kept the candle above her on the table – didn't burn as brightly as usual . . . the flame was low and flickering, giving off clouds of smoke that made the room a little hazy, and her thoughts a little fuzzy around the edges.

She thought about him.

She thought about what she thought about him, and what he might think about her, and what every little look and every little smile meant, and she thought about what she wanted and what she thought she wanted. She thought of all the formless wants in the pit of her stomach, and the slightly blurry outlines of the room, and wondered if he thought things like this. Because it was so easy to convince herself, here, in the dim light and the smell of burning wax, that he did, that maybe he ached like she did, right now. 

And she knew, when she'd wake up in the morning, that she'd blush and refuse to think about thinking all these things, and the candle would be out and the sunlight would be clear and sharp and the room would be bright and her thoughts wouldn't be dulled, and she would think that she didn't like him the way she thought she liked him, sometimes.

She turned over, too hot in her clothes, and wondered how much she really liked him, now. Right now, in the dimly-outlined dark and the warmth created by the coals in the fireplace. Too much. Liked him too much. Not the way good girls liked men. But when had it ever bothered her what good girls did, what good girls were supposed to want? She'd never been a 'girl', not the way girls were supposed to be, and … Too much. Liked him too much. 

Was it love? 

Love? How could it be love, when she didn't even know him as well as she would like, when he never opened up to her and they never had a conversation she didn't initiate? How could it be love, when the only times she thought like this were moments where she was too close or time just seemed – off. Wrong. Like now. How could it be love, when she didn't even know what she wanted from him?

Oh, she thought she knew; she wanted to talk and have him talk, and wanted to have a friend who cared, and that was all. But that wasn't true. She knew it wasn't true, and she'd known it for a while now. She was just . . . so confused. Just wanted him to smile at her when she was near, just wanted to be nearer than she was, just wanted so many – other – things right now . . . just wanted to talk, sometimes, and she didn't understand how she could want so many different things at the same time.

And she wasn't even seventeen yet. Old enough by Japanese standards, but she knew nothing about English law, and . . . what was she thinking? How far was she taking this?

She was never going to go to sleep like this. She didn't want to get up, not at all, just wanted to remain curled in a tight little ball until all these feelings went away, but she forced herself to sit up, to fan herself with the cloth of the nightie as she hoisted herself to her feet. The room seemed too small, almost claustrophobic, the warmth intoxicating, and she yanked the door open to clear it of the vibrating air created by the smoke. 

The blast of cool air from the hallway was the most beautiful thing she'd ever felt, and she could feel the sweat soaking her clothes drying. Picking up the candle, still pouring gouts of smoke, she stuck her feet into the velvet slippers she only wore when going to the bathroom and stepped out into the corridor, letting the drafts of cold air caress her as she walked. It felt much like a cold shower did in summer; as if her mind had just snapped back to her body, and that the world was clearer, less confused and blurry.

She thought for a second that she would go and find the library he had spoken about; maybe reading a book she knew he liked would help put her to sleep – if there was one thing books were good for, it was putting her to sleep. But she decided instead to make her way down to the kitchen and find a new candle. It wasn't really necessary, because a single candle could never give off enough smoke to be dangerous, but she thought that making the room smell a little less murky might help.

She was only halfway down the first flight of stairs when she heard voices. For a second she was sure she was hearing things – no one would be up at this time, and if awake, would never be wandering around. By the time she'd realised the voices were very real and very definitely approaching, she had only managed another four steps and wasn't out of sight when two men rounded the top of the staircase, stopping short when they saw her.

"Misao," said Aoshi. Absolute shock there, on his face, if not in his voice.

"Aoshi-sama!" she managed, eyes flicking between him and the man with him, not quite as tall and with fuzzy side-burns and a top hat. "I – was just – "

"Well, Shinomori – " began the man uncomfortably.

"Symonds, this is my ward, Makimachi Misao," said Aoshi, and his eyes were icier than the wind and his face as shut off as it had ever been. "Misao, I work with Mr. Symonds here."

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss – " She could literally see the man thinking, his mind trying to process whether her surname was Makimachi or Misao and which he should use either way. " – Makimachi."

She smiled at him, because she couldn't think of a good response. She thought they'd walk on, then, but Symonds just stayed there and continued looking at her, and Aoshi was looking too, but more at the banister behind her than at her, and she was suddenly aware of the fact that the nightdress had no sleeves and that it was plastered to her with sweat, and she _knew_ she didn't exactly have body-parts the way some women already had at her age, but it was still indecent, and _that_ was why Aoshi was being so cold to the man – and she could just imagine what Symonds had been thinking about her and Aoshi, about a girl not wearing all that many clothes and wandering around in the middle of the night – 

Her cheeks burned, the candle wobbling in her grasp. "I just came down to get another candle, Aoshi-sama," she said, looking at him very carefully and ignoring the other man. "Sorry to bother you."

He nodded, short and abrupt, and jerked his head towards the bottom of the stairs. "Get it, then."

She was surprised she didn't roll down half the steps in her haste to get to the kitchens. God, she'd known it was a bad idea to leave her room and go wandering about the manor in the middle of the night, but she'd never thought . . . The candle she took down from the shelf above her head shook in her hand as she lit the wick from the one already burning, and she couldn't blow out the smoking one in the first go. It took her four tries.

She thought they would both be long gone by the time she went back upstairs, and she was partially right. It was only Aoshi waiting at the top of the stairs for her, face shuttered and eyes hard. Her throat clenched; she stopped two steps below him and craned her neck to look up. 

"You should not be wandering around at night without something warm to cover you."

She supposed that was the most tactful way he could tell her that she was indecently dressed, and her face flamed despite the fact that his words were not that harsh. "I thought I would be back to my room really quickly."

She half-hoped he would sigh and let it go, but he didn't. "This is not acceptable, Misao. You aren't a little girl, and you can't go running around like this whenever you want."

That wasn't being very indirect, or very tactful. But she supposed he didn't _have_ to beat around the bush, didn't have to be extra polite to her; he was her guardian, and he had a right to tell her off whenever he thought it appropriate. Not that she was going to stand here and take it. "I'm sorry," she said in a tone that didn't sound very sorry at all. She didn't mean it to.

"And you really could catch cold," he said, and she thought she might catch it from his voice.

"Like you care," she shot back, and instantly knew she shouldn't have.

If she had thought his eyes were cold before, well, now they were sub-zero. His face hardened, lips tightening in a way that made her want to take two steps back and then run like hell. She gulped, hands fisting in the flimsy material of the nightdress – and it _was_ getting cold as the sweat filming her skin evaporated – and stammered, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean that, I _know_ you care, it's just – I was just – "

He didn't say anything. Not one word. His expression didn't flicker one bit. He turned on his heel and walked up the stairs, turned left to get to his room, and as she caught the look on his face as he turned the corner, it was still exactly the same. 

She wrapped her hands around herself and shivered. This was her fault. This was absolutely and completely her fault. She _knew_ he cared, she knew she shouldn't walk around half-dressed, she knew he only meant it so that _she_ wouldn't be embarrassed by other people – but she had been, embarrassed and angry and she'd said it and she was so _stupid_ . . . 

Running up after him and apologizing now would just rub it in further, the fact that she wasn't wearing anything proper and she was still willing to flit around the manor despite what he'd just said. She massaged her arms as she dragged her feet back upstairs, and to the suddenly welcome warmth of her room, thinking that she might finally be able to sleep now. Crying always exhausted you enough.

~*~


	12. 12

_I've been wrong, I've been down …_

~*~

The cleaning girl rarely came in to clean while he was in his room, but this was one of those days. He felt slightly awkward around her, because her father had named her – all of them – because he admired _his_ father, and he couldn't understand a man like that. He sat behind his desk as she dusted the rest of the furniture, and got up as if he had always meant to when she headed towards the desk to clean it. He had stacked the papers away beforehand; he did that every time he knew Kaoru would be coming to clean. 

"Mr. Shinomori?"

He started. The last thing he had expected was for her to attempt to speak to him – she never did that. There was the one time when she was only eleven or twelve and the old gardener had brought her up to the manor for no reason, but that was so long ago that he could barely remember. "Yes?" he said.

"Megumi – my sister, Megumi – was saying you haven't been for your checkup." Her voice was hesitant, eyes downcast; she knew very well that he didn't expect her to talk.

"_Dr. Rogers_," he said, with great deliberation, "said I didn't need to come for another six months."

Kaoru's head dipped lower as she mumbled, "Well, Megumi thinks you should. She thinks, with your family history, it's only expected – "

He made his voice as icy as he could. The nerve of that woman, thinking she could force him to come and be poked and prodded with her stupid instruments so that she could smirk and write down senseless things on her little notepad – "No."

The girl's mouth opened, eyebrows furrowing, but he looked at her and she clamped her lips together, nodding. After a second, she said, "I'll tell her that. That you said no."

Like he gave a damn what she told her sister. "Yes, tell her."

"Sorry for bothering you, Mr. Shinomori," said Kaoru, ducking her head further, duster clutched tightly in a white-knuckled hand. 

He clicked the door shut behind him as he stormed out of the room – well, left, not stormed, but he might as well have, Kaoru definitely flinched enough – but he wished he had banged it. Did no one understand how much he hated that phrase? Did no one realise how _often_ they used it? Did no one think they weren't a bother? He looked around, standing at the top of the staircase leading down to the front hall, unsure of what to do and where to go – in his own house! This is what they'd driven him to, all of them! – before finally thinking that the gardens would be a safe-ish place to go. He only went out for his morning walk everyday and maybe a sudden spying session on however things went on in the gardens during the rest of the day would give him satisfaction – a place to vent, people to glare at. 

It was just before midday, and the snows were over – mid-February was too late for lingering snowfall. The driveway wound before him, and his mind unwillingly flashed back to sitting here a long, cold January day waiting for Misao to come home. He gritted his teeth and tightened his trenchcoat, trudging down the pathway that branched off into the walled parts of the gardens, determined to find someone who deserved his bad mood.

When he heard the voices, he knew it was Sagara Sanosuke's lucky day. 

"And so I ask her, I say, 'What do you call a dead hippo?'"

"I dunno. What?"

"That's what she said! And I go, 'Hippoposthumous!'"

"Ha haa! Good one!"

"Yeah, it _is_ good, isn' it? And she just _glared _at me, as if I was – "

"A trespasser on my property?" Ah, the expressions on their faces. This was almost worth being chased out of his room by strange questions. Almost. He would have his revenge for that. Besides, he hated Sagara anyway, with his obsession with Megumi – those were two names he never forgot. And Himura Kenshin. 

The smaller boy, dark hair sticking up in all directions, looked as if his worst nightmare had just sprouted three more heads and was now letting flame out of its backside. Sagara looked similar, except there was less fire in his nightmare and one more head. "Mr. Shinomori – " began one of them, and then stopped with a gulp.

"Well?" he said. "The kitchens are open to you if and when you come to pick up your sister. She has a long while to go. Explain to me why you're here."

He could actually see Sagara swallow his 'We're here to collect Kaoru' and look for something to replace it with. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall of the little enclosed patch he had found the two of them in. This should be good.

"We thought it too much of a bother to walk back in the morning, so we thought we'd just stay till she's done." Sagara had fought his nightmare some; now it apparently only had two heads left and no spiny tail. He was standing up straighter, not quite as tall as he was, but the spikes of his hair giving him a few extra inches. 

"Then why aren't you in the kitchen?" They thought he could be icy most of the time – they had no idea how cold he could be when he tried.

Well, the boy and Sagara did, now. They swallowed, exchanged glances, and Sagara continued with his speaking role. "We got tired of being in there. We were in there for almost four hours," he added, as if he deserved sympathy. If he'd had any brains whatsoever, he would have known that _no one_ deserved sympathy right now. No one _ever_ deserved sympathy, especially not filthy freeloaders who liked women who had no calling in life but to dog his footsteps until he – 

"And I suppose four hours in one place is too much for even your extended patience."

"Er – ," cut in the boy – Yahiko, wasn't it? "We're – uh – sorry, Mr. Shinomori, we'll just be goin' now – "

Going? But Sagara was just heating up, his cheeks were just getting flushed, and he couldn't wait until he threw a punch and embarrassed Kaoru and Megumi to the depths of their beings. That would lose him any chance he had with her. That would make both their lives miserable, like Misao made _his_ life miserable – and this was about Megumi and her constant nagging, _not_ about Misao – and – "Going?" said Sagara. "We ain't goin' nowhere. Now, Shinomori, there ain't no need to get nasty – it's not like we've done anythin' really wrong – "

"Sano," groaned the boy, tugging at his arm. Bright kid.

"No?" he said coolly. "You _do_ know what the penalty for trespassing is with the town magistrate, don't you?"

Sagara went red and white in two seconds flat. It wasn't the penalty itself that scared him; a couple of months in jail was nothing to this boy, it was the fact that there was so much else to be unearthed once the authorities got their hands on him … illegal immigration being only one of the things springing to mind. "You _wouldn't_, you stinking – "

"_Sano_," Yahiko practically moaned, and Aoshi could feel the satisfied smirk that half-emerged.

"I work for the government. I would only be doing my duty, and if you give me cause to stop neglecting it – "

"I don't need favours from you! Tell 'em whatever you want! See if I care!" Ah, his hands were flexing now, fingers fisting. One more barb, and then an unflustered exit. Leave him seething. The smirk on his own face widened.

"No, I'd be doing everyone _else_ a favour. Kaoru and Megumi would just be glad to get you off their backs – "

"Glad to get rid of me? You have any idea what they think of _you_, Icicle-man?"

Oh, he knew, and he didn't care. You had to hit where it hurt. He doesn't care what Kaoru and Megumi think – once he cared, but eight years is a long time – he only cares what Misao thinks, and he knows what she thinks and it hurts, but that isn't what Sagara had said . . . 

"We're going now, Mr. Shinomori!" said Yahiko, loud and bright and trembling-chinned, grabbing Sagara's sleeve and trying to pull him along. His attempt was as useless as the last one.

He smirked and turned on his heel, delivering a parting shot over his shoulder, "Mr. Donaldson owes me a visit anyway." Mr. Donaldson was a weak and ineffective man who had no business being the magistrate, but his father had been and so he was too . . . and wasn't that how everything worked?

He only half listened to Sagara's strangled roar as he walked out of the enclosed garden, the smirk still hovering around his mouth. This was fun. This was what his life was like before Misao came, before he started to care. Where this group of people whose names he didn't even know were the only people he interacted with outside of work, and terrorizing them was more than enough to make him feel better if he was especially angry. And it was a strange way of making himself better – an unhealthy way, he supposed, not the kind of calm feel-better that Misao gave him . . . but she didn't make him calm anymore, did she? Just annoyed him and frustrated him and insulted him until his heart hurt, and when he ran into her now she was soft and apologetic and scared, and he hated that, and he just avoided her more, and he didn't think they would ever get out of that cycle.

When he turned a corner and saw the woman walking up the path in front of him, his first impulse was to turn around and run as far as he could. He even backpedalled a few steps, but she had caught sight of him by that time, dark hair shimmering down her back as she turned, surprise and disgust and resignation all on her face.

He knew exactly how she felt. "Miss Megumi," he said, inclining his head, very happy with the thirty feet of distance between them.

"Mr. Shinomori," she replied, equally stilted. "I did not expect to see you, but since I have – "

The anger he'd just let out seemed to build again, slow and simmering and horrible. He looked at her and saw a friendship he had ruined, looked at her and saw the past repeating itself, a friendship, ever-so-fragile, destroyed for hormones and kisses that meant nothing. That led to this, two people standing in a deserted lawn as far away as they could, hating the sight of each other. And this is what he would not do to Misao. This time he wouldn't give in. 

But wasn't this discomfort, this hatred, what he was well on his way to achieving anyway?

"I do not need to come to the clinic this soon," he said, quick and knife-edged.

"Dr. Rogers doesn't understand, he didn't see your father's illness . . . it is only safe to make sure, after all."

"Haven't you checked enough?" he said, and he was surprised his voice wasn't rising. He thought it had been. "If there was anything, you would know by now. And even if there is a chance, I do not care. Why is it so hard for you to understand that?"

"As a doctor, it is my duty to make sure – !" Her eyes were sparking. He _hated_ her.

"Like you care."

_Like you care_. The words hung there, flung out the way Misao had flung them out at him that night on the stairs, all white skin and big eyes, so easily thrown, so hard to circumvent. Childish, unlike him, but there they were, haunting his thoughts, and now out through his mouth. _Like you care_.

Megumi blazed up like a match laid to dry leaves. "As much as I dislike – no, _loathe_ you – Shinomori, I do not want you to _die!_ If I have to force you to the clinic every two months, I will!"

The bubbles of his anger didn't abate, but the fire lowered slightly. He wasn't going to pick a fight with her, not after taunting Sagara already. If they sat down to compare notes, Sagara and Megumi and Kaoru, they'd piece together the reasons for his bad mood easily enough, and the last thing he wanted was for Megumi to know that her nagging upset him this much. Not that it was the only reason, but . . . "Are you here to speak with Kaoru? She's finishing up with my rooms."

"Actually, I needed to talk to Omasu and Okon." Her head was held high, eyes still alight. "I expect you at the clinic next week."

"I hope Okon and Omasu are free. Sometimes they are busy all day." By God, he would _make_ them busy all day today.

"I'm sure they'll find time. Next week, Shinomori."

"Have a nice day, _Miss_ Megumi." 

As he turned away, he thought she might have ground her teeth, but it didn't make him feel any better. He was grinding his own. One day . . . one day he would be free of this. One day he'd see her and wouldn't want to run. One day he wouldn't feel angry and sad and one day he wouldn't hate her anymore. 

He wondered if Misao would hate him, soon. She thought he was heartless, true, but he didn't think she hated him. But would she, one day, even if he didn't do with her what he did with Megumi? 

Probably. Who didn't hate him?

Almost at the front door, knowing Megumi wasn't far behind, he supposed the only thing to top his day so far would be to bang into Misao and have her stammer apologies at him. He almost wished she would start flinging insults . . . Oh, he knew he didn't wish that. _Like you care_. He did care. He didn't used to, and now he did, and he hated it. He'd grown out of caring, his mother and father and everything else in his life had taken care of that, and now . . . now he had to grow out of it again. And it hurt.

And sure enough, there she was, holding that vase she'd almost broken that day – was it really as long ago as he thought it was? – her face screwed up into something unreadable, looking small and hard in a severe skirt and a dark blouse. She always wore dark colours in the day. He had never wondered why. 

He supposed he had to ask. He couldn't just walk by and watch her smash the vase he'd already rescued once. And he supposed she'd planned all this and he was stepping right into it. _Like you care_. "What are you doing, Misao?"

One eye popped open, and he took the opportunity to glance around to see where Megumi was. He couldn't see her behind him, and he assumed she'd taken the kitchen door. Good. At least she wouldn't be looking in on this. "Nothing," she said, extremely unconvincingly.

He would have sighed, but he was angry and irritated and really not ready to deal with whatever scheme she had come up with to make him talk to her properly again. What did she want, after all? She was supposed to tell him he was heartless and have him say, fine, let's have lunch? Bring your copy of Dickens along? Apologies were not the point – it was the fact that she'd said it, that she'd thought it. It wasn't an apology he wanted; he wanted the thought gone from her mind, wanted her never to have thought it . . . and didn't blame her for thinking it. So he did the only thing he knew best; he ignored her. And here she was holding up that expensive Chinese vase, ready to throw. 

One of these days, all his hair was going to fall out and grow back white.

"You're holding a vase you've already almost broken two feet above your head, and you expect me to believe that you're doing nothing with it."

"I'm doing nothing with it right _now_," she said, arms outstretched above her head. 

The lowering simmer began rising again, close to boil. He would never lash out at her, never; he would simply shut down, absolutely and completely, and he knew she recognised that for what it was. "Put it down," he said.

"Why?" she said, looked straight back at him. Had he really thought he didn't want groveling and apologies? At least he could deal with those quickly.

"Because I'm telling you to." Standard grown-up answer, and he'd hated it when he was small, but there was a certain satisfaction in whipping it out right now.

"Well I told you that I was sorry, and did you listen? No. So why should I listen to you?"

Oh, perfect. Now he had to reestablish his authority, and either destroy whatever friendship that could have been salvaged out of this, or let it go and have her smash the vase and any respect and obedience she had left for him at the same time. "I cannot make you listen to me," he said, in a voice that suggested he very much could. "I can only ask you to put it down. If you don't, I do not expect you to ever listen to me again, and I do not expect to ever listen to anything you have to say again either."

Her eyes bored into his, and he looked back unblinkingly. Her eyes were unreadable, blue and wide and hard, but whether angry or thoughtful or simply stubborn he didn't know. Then her mouth twitched, and he knew he'd won. Slowly, so very slowly, she lowered the vase, held it tucked under one arm. He winced, mentally; that was more pressure than it's delicate glass could probably withstand. "Will you listen to me, now?" she asked.

Asked. It wasn't a demand, it wasn't a mumbled apology, wasn't a burst of impatient anger. It was a question.

"All right," he said.

And then there was silence. She just stared at him, wide-eyed, as if she hadn't ever expected him to actually agree to anything she said. He was slightly pleased with himself – he never liked being predictable. And the anger rolled around somewhere inside him and he fenced it away into a part of his mind for the moment, because he didn't need it now. He would listen to her. He wasn't sure if he wanted to or not, but he would.

"I'm sorry about not wearing – enough stuff – that night," she said, and her cheeks went red but her eyes remained fixed on his. "And I'm sorry about saying that you didn't care if I caught cold, because I know you do. I was just angry, and I wanted to make _you_ angry, and I know that's stupid and makes no sense, but I did, and besides, how was I to know you'd have someone over so late? You _never_ have anyone over. And you've been avoiding me like the plague, and it's not like I said anything really bad – okay, so maybe I did, but you _know_ I didn't mean it. You know that!"

He was going to wait for her to run out of steam before he said anything. He wasn't going to interrupt, not at all. Already he could see her breaking down, a worried crease between her brows, as she went on, "I mean, you _do_ realise that, don't you? That I was just being stupid and bratty? You're _supposed_ to understand that. It's your job! And . . . well, you wouldn't avoid me if you _did_ understand, so I suppose you don't – didn't – but . . . say something, for God's sake!"

"I was listening," he deadpanned.

"Well, stop listening and _say_ something."

He had a horrible, horrible urge to say 'something', and shoved it down. "All right," he said.

She blinked at him, angry and red-faced and fuming. "If I had my kunai . . ." she ground out.

He raised an eyebrow. 

Her face broke into a grin just as suddenly. "Bad way to wind up an apology, ne? But . . . well, you have to say something. And _not_ just all right. You have to accept it. You have to say, 'I accept your apology, Misao, and I will never freeze up on you again.'"

"Freeze up?" he said. _Excuse me?_

She coughed loudly, covering the rise of his voice on the word 'up'. "Are you listening to me, Aoshi-sama?"

"I accept your apology, Misao," he recited obediently. The anger settled inside its fence and decided to go to sleep for a while. 

"And?" she prompted.

He looked back at her blankly. 

She sighed. "Oh, fine. Be that way." There was a beat of silence as she stood there, eyes clear once more, looking at him as he looked at her, ever-present braid hanging down her back and dressed all in shades of black and grey. Girls didn't usually dress like that, he thought again, and wondered why Okon and Omasu didn't get her something bright and happy to wear. Something that suited her. That was like her.

"Put the vase down."

"Hai, Aoshi-sama," she said, and stuck her tongue out.

Someone stuck an arrow in the anger and it groaned, gave a few dying thrashes, and faded away.

~*~

A dinner.

Dear God, a dinner.

Here. At Misselthwaite Manor. With Makimachi Misao as hostess.

He had an urge to giggle, high-pitched and insane, and fought it down as he signed the last of the yellow cards lying in front of him. He thought he could see the strings attached to his hands as he opened an envelope for each and put the cards carefully inside, placing each precisely, the folded side outwards and the envelopes sealed with wax. Usually Okon and Omasu would do things like this, but he was the one who had to sign them, and work was lagging just now – he had absolutely no information on the general, hence the dinner – and he'd volunteered to do it. Or more like ordered Omasu and Okon out when they said they'd take the cards when he had put his signature at the end of the invitation, but it was his way of volunteering.

A dinner.

He stacked the envelopes up neatly, imagining that Omasu would have told Misao about it by now. He didn't have the courage to do it himself, didn't have the courage to go and tell her that in a week's time she would be stuffed into a party dress and expected to be nice to people he didn't especially like, expected to act the hostess to a group of dangerous men at a dinner that was purely arranged for business purposes. 

The giggle rose again. A dinner. Next week.

They were never going to survive this.

He knew how things worked for women in these times. At sixteen, girls were ready to be 'out', to be taken to the city and shown around parties and balls until they found a suitable match. He'd been in London enough to have been forced to attend a few such occasions, and his mother had left him enough of a history to make him a target for women who weren't quite rich or attractive enough to find men richer and more attractive than they were. His mother's family had been well-known, and well-respected, but his father had been a man far below her station in life, and his hair was just too dark and his eyes just tilted that little bit too much for him, diluted as his blood was, to be mistaken for anything but a foreigner. 

And now there would be people in this house, with their frowns and their censorious eyes, disapproving of a sixteen-year-old girl who couldn't conduct herself in polite society – and she really couldn't, he knew that well enough – a girl whose guardian had never gotten her a proper female chaperone, hadn't ever had her taken to London for a summer – and no matter that she hadn't been here long enough, they wouldn't ever be that accommodating. And he didn't know how much of such criticism Misao had faced, how much disapproval she had fought off in Japan, but he didn't want it now. Didn't want to ruin whoever _she_ was so that she could be who society wanted her to be. Vacant and vapid and restricted.

Underneath all of which lay the slight guilt that he hadn't done anything of this for her, hadn't fulfilled any of the expected requirements of a guardian for a sixteen-year-old.

He thought of calling Omasu to come and take the cards, but eventually decided to take them downstairs himself. He needed to look over the house anyway, order preparations for the food for next week, sort out the withdrawing room – needed to see if the dining table hadn't been devoured by termites. He picked up his neatly arranged stack and started for the stairs. The house was pretty quiet, but not eerily so; Shiro and Kuro could be heard outside, a low rumble coming from the kitchens where Okon and Omasu presumably were. He supposed Misao was studying, because he was sure she wasn't outside.

It had to be his house, didn't it? It just had to. He never showed any interest in social affairs, in social connections, and they _would_ pick his house to hold this at. Why? Because he never called anyone, and so _everyone_ would be willing to accept his invitation – out of pure curiosity, if nothing else – and he had a hostess now, too, so he couldn't pull out that excuse either. It had always been a flimsy one, but backed up with folded arms and an icy glare it had always worked. He had tried to tell Davidson that Misao was just a little girl, but Symonds had coughed and coughed until he nearly choked himself, and Davidson, one of their best, over from France, had said that Symonds had previously said otherwise, at which both of them had glared at each other and Aoshi had been the one to give in. Give in to the dinner, that is. He continued the glare long after Symonds stopped.

The dust-sheets had been removed from the dining room earlier that day, but the chairs were still pushed back against the walls instead of placed properly with the table, and there was a general air of mustiness surrounding the place. He remembered the last few meals he'd had here . . . Just after he'd begun university, when he would still come home in the time he had off, he used to sit with his father here, eat out of their best cutlery and sit straight throughout. His father had been particular about things like that – meals on time, food always on the dining table, table manners perfect. A combination of the meticulous attention given to tradition in Japanese society, and his own desire to fit in as a respectable man in a country where the very slant of his eyes was enough to condemn him to disreputability. 

He supposed that was why he always had his food sent up to him in trays, whenever he wanted, _if_ he wanted. 

It made him think of Misao – _I was just angry, and I wanted to make _you_ angry_ – and he wondered if anyone ever really grew up. He was twenty-six, and here he was, still rebelling against his father in ever-so-petty ways, angry, and trying to make him angry, somehow, in some way, even though he was dead and gone and he didn't believe in his spirit watching over him, or any of that. He hated that his father still had such a strong hold over him, hated that Megumi did too, hated that he couldn't break out of any of it – hated that he couldn't help pulling Misao into all of this as well.

"Aoshi-sama," came Okon's voice from behind him.

"Yes?" he said, turning.

"Have you completed the invitations?"

"Yes. I put them on the table in the hall."

"Oh. Thank you." She stopped. "Misao didn't take it very well."

News of the dinner? He didn't think she would. "What did she say?"

"Well, that it was just unfair, and that you were – not exactly the most – um – honourable? – person in the world for not telling her directly, and that she can't eat properly at a table, and you should know things like that . . . and honestly, Aoshi-sama, what were you thinking? She doesn't even have a dress! And there hasn't been a dinner here for at least five years, and we don't want to give a bad showing!"

"She said coward, didn't she?"

Okon almost laughed. "That was the exact word, yes."

He thought for a minute, and Okon stood around because he knew she knew he was thinking. "Will clothes really be a problem?" he asked finally. 

Okon shrugged. "We _can_ get her something ready in time . . . it's just . . . convincing her to wear it might be something of an issue."

Something very akin to panic rose in his throat. "But you'll manage?"

"Actually, Omasu and I were hoping that maybe you could have a talk with her about it – "

The panic manifested itself as a lump that made it even harder to talk than usual. "No." He tried to make it flat, cold, emotionless … he thought a little of the panic broke off and filtered through.

Or maybe it didn't, because Okon just mumbled something and then said, "Well, I should attend to the invitations. You have to tell us how much chicken to have sent up from the town."

"There are twenty-two people invited. Make your own estimate."

She nodded and left, leaving him to his perusal of the stuffy dining room. He saw his father sitting there, grey streaking his oily hair, saw the way his face hardened and his cheekbones stood out as he ordered him to hold his fork properly, told him what a failure of a son he was, remembered thinking how much he wanted to stab the fork straight through the hand that lay over his, directing his fingers.

How could Misao not hate him after what he had to do now?

~*~

Omasu had the most annoying smirk on her face, he thought. He had seen her smirk annoyingly before; when Okon had embarrassed herself in front of Sagara, when Shiro had broken his arm – Shiro was very accident-prone – and missed a dance in the village, when Kaoru's bratty little brother called Misao a 'weasel' . . . He'd overheard that yesterday in the gardens, and because he hadn't been in a terribly bad mood, he hadn't told the boy to get lost. Also, Sagara wasn't there, so there was very little satisfaction to be had.

But, regardless, this was one of the worst smirks he'd seen for a while. 

She set the two trays down on his desk, one in front of Misao, one in front of him, steam rising from the steaks and potatoes. He pulled the tray a little closer to him, watched her deliver one last smirk and pat Misao's shoulder reassuringly as she went out. So he got the smirks and she got the it's-been-nice-knowing-you-s?

Misao had already delivered her rant – which involved quite a bit of shouting and words that had to do with 'spineless' and 'jelly-brained' – and was now smiling and telling him about Himura, Kaoru's freeloader, and how he did laundry for her and that she couldn't imagine _him_ ever doing laundry . . . Honestly, the mental image that brought up scared him, and he had to glare at her a little before she stopped and pulled the tray towards her.

He hadn't had to call her to have lunch, and he was glad; that would have made it too obvious. She'd come up herself, he'd offered to let her stay, and she'd accepted. And now here he was, faced with the knife and fork he had to teach her to wield, and not let her know that he was doing that, because it would just make her scream and act insulted – how dare he say she couldn't use her utensils properly? 

She was fluent enough with a spoon – the concept didn't exactly require too much comprehension. He'd seen her put away stew and soup with little or no spillage, and she would end up bringing a set of chopsticks with her for rice and meat . . . sometimes she used her hands, and he pretended not to notice. He'd never thought it would have repercussions. Misao using a fork and knife might not be very good for his physical well-being, but better her slicing up his face now than Davidson's at the dinner. Although, at the moment, he wouldn't mind if Davidson got his scrawny features slashed by a steak knife – 

"Why don't you try using a fork today, Misao?" he asked. "And a knife?"

She blinked at him as if he'd suddenly started speaking gibberish. "Do you have a deathwish, Aoshi-sama?" she asked, very seriously.

Did he? Sometimes he didn't know. He reached over and picked up the fork lying in her plate, fingers just below the base of the bend in the metal, offering the handle to her. He couldn't really think of anything to say.

She blinked again, nose screwing up as she took the fork from him. "And I guess you expect me to stab my steak with it?" she said.

"Something like that," he said, picking up his own utensils.

She did exactly that, grounding her fork into the meat so hard that the handle vibrated when she let go. "There. Can I eat now?"

"Did I tell you not to eat?" He cut off a bite for himself, speared it on his fork.

She opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again to snap, "Fine!" Her hands reached for the gravy-covered piece of meat, slender fingers digging into it, ready to tear off a piece. 

"No hands," he said, watching her from under his lashes. Maybe if he didn't give her the satisfaction of looking up, of paying attention, she'd stop asking for it and just listen to him . . .

She grabbed the fork and yanked backwards, face furious. The plate lifted up, and his muscles tensed, ready to grab it before she brought the china crashing to the floor, but it fell back as she let go. She glared at him, spit out, "See, I tried! No hands! Now can I _eat_?"

"Eat," he said accommodatingly. "But no hands."

She looked back at him, eyes sparking. "Make me."

He thought it happened in slow motion. Her fingers moved towards the plate again, and her words echoed in his head, once, twice – _Like you care. Make me. – _and he felt more than saw his own arm reaching out, his fingers encircling her wrist – _so thin_ – one wrist, then both, caught in the same hand, his palm and fingers wrapping around the bones of her wrist, going full circle. 

That part of him that had panicked before panicked again now. She stared at him, eyes wide, unbelievably blue, her hands caught a few inches above her plate, engulfed in his. He could feel every rise and dip in her arm, in her wrist, feel the way the skin stretched over the delicate bones and pressed into his palm, and he could feel the blood pumping through her veins, her pulse beating … beating …

And his pulse was racing, too, he knew, and she was too close, and when they sat he wasn't all that much taller than her, and he was already leaning forward to keep his grip – _why didn't he let go, damn him?_ – and she was staring into his eyes – _why didn't she look away?_ – and she wasn't pulling away either . . . and he couldn't understand why not . . . He thought what it would be like to lean closer, even closer, have her pulse beating around him, everywhere, and – oh God, she was _sixteen_, and he was her guardian, and what was he thinking?

He could see the half-blush on her cheeks, the confusion – and something else? – in her eyes, and when she opened her mouth and articulated, "Aoshi-sama?" he couldn't think of an answer for her.

He let go of her hands as if he'd just dropped a hot brick, and they dropped exactly like bricks, hitting the desktop unsupported. She blinked, and he blinked, and he said, "No hands." He thought he might be telling himself that. No hands. No touching.

She covered up well, too. "Hmph," she said. "Whatever. But if the knife goes through your throat, well, you asked for it!"

He really had, hadn't he?

The steel of the knife – he remembered when cutlery was silver, and wanted to smile – was cold against his hand, strange and unyielding after her soft skin. He gripped the handle tightly, tried to absorb the lack of warmth, tried to make his hands cold again. 

It didn't work.

As Misao's temper found its way into a deep dark forest and got lost, Aoshi looked at the fork embedded in the wall behind him, handle vibrating wildly, and wondered vaguely if he was in deeper than he thought. In more ways than one, he decided, as a knife whooshed past to join the fork in its rhythmical vibration. 

He thought of the dinner, and the urge to giggle rose again.

~*~

_Author's Notes_: It's been a long time since I actually wrote any 'notes', hasn't it? Actually, I'm still getting over the shock of getting over 100 reviews – having convinced myself it's true after much head-banging (the wall is quite dented) – and am still, even at 139, pretty much speechless. I mean, I never thought I'd actually be one of _those_ people, you know? I found myself on a 'Favourite Stories' list and practically swooned. Incidentally, swooning is fun. Very girly.

But, what I mean to say is, thank you. So very very _very_ much. To all of you who _don't_ have cable internet and go to all the trouble of reading and – if you're money-savers – reconnecting to review, and to all of you who have it easier and have still made the effort to click and write and … I bow before you. All of you.

As for the fic … it _is_ going somewhere. It – and I – do know where it's going. But it's not going to get there fast. I don't mean my updating (*blush*) – I mean the pace of the action itself. I wallow and I psychoanalyse and sometimes I just get plain distracted, but I do have an aim, and I will get there. Eventually. I think. It's just that, at this point, I don't think any dramatic twist is appropriate. Aoshi has to come to terms with himself, Misao has to figure herself out, and it doesn't make sense for them to fall into each other's arms just yet, whatever the circumstances. And I know it drags, sometimes, but this is one of those fics that I wrote for _me_, know what I mean? Where I just went on writing and never intended to post it … and then one day I just thought, well, what the heck, and I did … and then it got wiped … and you know the story.

Again, pointless rambling that really meant: Thank you, I'm sorry, I love you, and yes, I know it's slow. I just thought you should know that I know. 

Or something like that. Friends flashbacks, anyone?

Oh, and does anyone know a good site for manga scans? The early ones. I've searched and searched, but most things have been taken down or just don't work, and I'm having problems with picturisation these days, so I thought … well, anyway. 

Next time, chicken feathers!


	13. 13

A/N: (basically to _nekonomiko_) So you disliked the giggling? I can see why you would think that; I mean, to actually imagine Aoshi giggling (*shudder*) … but he's not. He just wants to, and it _is_ ridiculous, and it _is_ insane, and it _is_ inappropriate, all of which is pretty much what he thinks about the dinner as well, and hence the need to giggle. He's not amused, not really … and it's not cynicism, precisely … it's that hysterical laugh you get before an exam, you know? (Can't really explain it better than that. Does it sound like I've given too many exams? 'Cause I have!)

I don't usually do the individual replies to reviews because I can't think up enough witty, appreciative things to say … and continuous 'Thank you's and 'I love you's have their own place, but … Well, you asked, and I deliver. And somehow it gives me a strange kind of thrill, justification does, because if you still don't agree I'll have to go back and see what can be done to make it more believable (I mean, I wouldn't have posted it if I didn't think it was, but … customer satisfaction!) and that's work and improvement and if they go hand in hand I don't mind.

Work without improvement I do _not_ agree with, which leads to my distinct lack of work as a rule, but … that's beside the point.

~*~

_… been to the bottom of every bottle._

~*~

"Sanosuke will be waiting."

"Let him wait."

"He's been waiting for the past two hours."

"He can wait another five minutes."

"You said that half an hour ago!"

"Spread your arms, Misao, we want to measure your waist – "

"You took that last time."

"That was almost five months ago, wasn't it, Mrs. Pritchard?"

"Yes, it was, Miss, and you could have changed sizes easily in that long …"

"Well, I haven't! And Sano will leave – he promised to show me around town, and I'm sure he doesn't have _that_ long – "

"Oh, Sanosuke _always_ has time," said Omasu with a grin, nostalgic and flirty. 

Misao groaned. "He's not even that good-looking! Why do you like him so much?"

Omasu looked as if Misao had told her that oxygen wasn't needed to breathe. "Now what if I told you that Aoshi-sama had horrible hair?"

She blazed up immediately. "He does _not_ have horrible hair! _Sanosuke_, on the other hand – "

"And that he was the most frigid, emotionally stunted man in the world?"

Her hands reached for kunai she knew she didn't have, and then she caught Omasu's eye and was forced to laugh. "I might actually have to agree with you there," she grinned. "But Sano isn't anywhere near as – " She gestured wildly, trying to find a good word, and was saved the trouble by Omasu patting her on the head condescendingly. 

"It's okay, Misao-chan," she said. She – and Okon – only said '-chan' when they really wanted to make her angry. It worked. "We can't choose who we like. Sad as that is."

"You don't even really like Sanosuke," Misao snapped, rubbing her left elbow as Mrs. Pritchard measured the other with a long-suffering sigh.

"Oh, no," said Omasu, in a tone that made the suggestion so ridiculous that Misao almost blushed. "You think I'd do that to Megumi?"

She blinked. "Megumi? K-Kaoru's sister Megumi, right? Though how many Megumis you could have in one English town – "

Omasu looked at her closely. "Sanosuke has – feelings – for Megumi. You didn't know?"

She racked her brains, and remembered hearing something about it from Sano and Yahiko – all their respective 'things', and her own painfully obvious one too. "Oh yeahh …" she said, clasping a hand to her chest as Mrs. Pritchard began measuring around it. "Hey!"

"Don't be childish, Misao-chan," admonished Omasu. She peered out the murky window of the shop, where Sanosuke was creating a clear patch where he leaned against the glass. "Look, he's still there. Stand _straight_, Misao!"

"Jeez, you sound like Aoshi-sama! Sit straight, Misao, eat properly, Misao, _don't_ try to decapitate me, Misao – "

"Did you really try?" Omasu asked, with unparalleled interest.

"Er … I didn't _mean_ to … the knives kinda just flew …" She wriggled uncomfortably, and Mrs. Pritchard sucked in an annoyed breath. 

"Knives?" said Omasu. "As in, plural?"

"Well … Aoshi-sama was sick of getting up and retrieving the knife every time it went flying, so he got Okon to bring up more than one … and it was a disaster …" 

Mrs. Pritchard, finished with her tsk-ing, had caught the last part of this conversation, and was now goggling at them. "You threw _knives_ at Mr. _Shinomori_? Miss?"

"Are the measurements done?" she asked quickly, and as the woman nodded, picked up her skirts and ran out of the shop, leaving Omasu to explain the murderous ward and her willing-to-be-murdered guardian.

"Took you long enough, weasel girl," said Sanosuke, ever-present fishbone in his mouth. It wasn't that warm yet, but his sleeves were rolled up and his coat unbuttoned. 

"Sorry," she said. "And _don't _call me that!"

"It's been – " He glanced at the village clock, hanging above the tiny church, " – close to two hours. Never had much experience with buying women's clothing, myself, but what took _that_ long?"

"They had to measure everything!" she said, beginning to walk alongside him.

"_Everything_?" he leered.

She conked him over the head. "Yes, everything! I thought you'd leave, actually, but I guess I'd underestimated your – "

"I did leave," he interrupted immediately. "Hangin' around with the Fox Lady at the clinic. Thought I'd check on you one last time, then I was just gonna give up an' go home."

"The Fox Lady?" she asked, blank. 

He waved a bandaged hand. "You know her, right? Kaoru's sister, Megumi?"

"Ah," she said knowledgeably. "The one you have a thing for."

She was quite convinced that Sagara Sanosuke never blushed, but was that red in his cheeks? "Say it louder, why don't'cha," he muttered, words almost unintelligible around the fishbone. "I don't think the unconscious patient in Misselthwaite Clinic heard ya!"

She grinned. "Didn't ask you all this earlier, but … you like her, so, does she like you back? How far along are you, anyway?"

"God, weasel girl, you're makin' it sound like I'm pregnant or somethin'! Yes, I like her – a little! – and no, she hates my guts, and so we're _nowhere_ along. God!" He raked his hand through his hair as he repeated the word 'God', causing it to stand up even higher. She hadn't been sure that was possible.

"Huh," she said. "I have it better than that, at least."

"What? The Icicle doesn't hate all the itsy-bitsy parts of you? You never know, girl, he probably wants to puke in revulsion every time you come near, but you'd never know it to look at his face. Stupid bastard."

She had fistfuls of his hair even before he finished his sentence. "Take it back! Don't call him that! You don't know anything about him, you – "

"Ah, Misao-dono," said a soft voice behind them. Sanosuke scrambled to his feet, knees lathered with mud, and Misao smiled sheepishly and climbed off her awkward position on his shoulders, fixing her skirts so that no more leg showed. Thank God the street was deserted. Mostly.

"It is a surprise to see you in town," said Himura, smiling the way he almost always did. Unlike Sano, his English was proper and precise, even though it had to have been picked up from the streets in the same way. He also tended to lapse into Japanese a lot more, but he tried not to, and tried hard.

"Told you I'd be taking her around one of these days," said Sano, fixing his headband and brushing out uprooted handfuls of hair. "Ow."

She stuck out her tongue at him. "What are you here for, Himura-san?" she said, turning to the shorter man. It felt strange not to be polite to him when he was so overly polite to her, so she always tacked on the '-san' … she did forget, at times, and he didn't mind, but she did her best. 

"Kaoru-dono asked me to drop something off with Megumi-dono, and I was doing that."

"Why don't you hang around with us, then?" she offered, with a murderous look at Sanosuke. 

"Yeah, Kenshin," he said, putting an arm around the small man's shoulders, almost lifting him off his feet. "Let's go gambling!" In an undertone to Misao, he added, "He _always_ calls right."

"Oro …" Himura kicked his legs, eyes panicked. "Kaoru-dono will – not like this – "

"Oh, don't be such a wuss," said Sano, dragging him along. "I know this great place, 's beneath the Fifth Boar, and everyone's there … completely hush-hush, of course, because gambling's all a thing for the nobility, nowadays, but they've set it up real well, and …"

As they walked down the street, it occurred to Misao, briefly, that perhaps a gambling hall wasn't the best place for a girl to be, and a well-dressed one at that, who looked as if she might have money and – what with the number of people who lived in this village in the first place – instantly recognizable for who she was. Shinomori's ward. It was only a passing thought, though, and she held the hem of her dress up confidently as she followed Himura and Sano into the tavern they had reached.

As her first experience of an English tavern, it wasn't all that shocking. There were tables, but she'd expected that, and barrels of drink lined up that were filled with alcohol but not sake – that made her sad, made her suddenly, poignantly homesick – but because it was the middle of the day, there were only a couple of patrons, rough-bearded men with huge mugs before them. The three of them – all Japanese, one a red-haired man with what suspiciously looked like a sword, one a girl with a fairly expensive dress but tilted eyes nonetheless, and one a boy with a red headband and linen-wrappings on his hands, a sure sign of fistfights – should have attracted unprecedented amounts of attention, but Sano simply waved at the man behind the curving counter and walked to a trapdoor in the floor at the end of the room, hefting it up easily.

Himura might have stood back and applied the ladies first rule, but Sano shoved him through, and Misao hopped down before he could do the same to her as well. The trapdoor banged behind them, and as she breathed in the smell of sweat and smoke and alcohol, she knew it was indeed a gambling hall. Just like the ones back home.

Well, human beings were human beings everywhere.

Sanosuke had been absolutely correct when he said that Himura always called right. Misao had never seen this kind of – luck, intuition, _cheating_, whatever it was. She settled herself down on the floor between Himura and Sano – she could take care of herself well enough, but it was always better to be sandwiched between two men you knew than between two men you didn't – and watched as Himura said, "Five-six split," and the dice landed exactly as he called them, gaped as he said, "Snake Eyes," and the dice fell the same way. She gaped, too, as the pile of money next to Sanosuke grew bigger and bigger, and she could see the coins reflected in his eyes as he leaned forward for every roll of the dice.

At some point, Himura asked wearily, "Isn't gambling illegal, Sano?"

"What'cha talkin' about?' said Sano, slurring around his fishbone. "Your sakabatou's illegal too, innit?"

Himura sighed. "That's true, but …" 

Some of the men began muttering that they wanted to move on to cards, or to more tricky forms of dicing, where you needed strategy as well as luck, but Sanosuke's sore losers comment made them stick to the regular way. Himura had ordered food at some point, and she ate with relish, that plate of slightly stringy chicken being her first 'public' meal in all her stay here.

"Did you sleep with Lady Luck or somethin', Sano?" said a dark-haired man sitting opposite, eyes slightly bloodshot.

Sanosuke and Himura looked at each other, then turned around and made gagging noises. "N-No," managed Sanosuke, patting Himura's head gingerly. "My Lady Luck's right here. Just – not slept with!"

"Hey," said Himura, fending off his hand. He looked about as insulted as Misao had ever seen him – that is to say, not all that much. "Don't call me a girl."

"Yeah, I'm the girl here," she cut in, shoveling food into her mouth.

They ignored her.

When they finally made it out of there, she was feeling a little woozy from all the smoke in the enclosed space, and Sanosuke and Himura were shoving money into a small sack Himura had somehow produced from the numerous folds of his shirt, Sanosuke grinning madly, showing so much teeth that it was scaring her, and Himura with his eyes turned up, smile stretched across his face. Apparently, even nice, polite rurounis were susceptible to the lure of money.

It was nearing sunset, outside, and she realised that Omasu might be getting worried. She'd been supposed to meet her at half past four, and the clock told her it was past that already. 

"Thanks, you guys," she said, suppressing a burp. "I had a great time!"

Himura nodded, but Sano ignored her, digging through the sack, tongue hanging. 

"I _said_, I had a great time!" She thwapped him on the head for good measure, turning around to bow to Himura. He would understand – she thought he missed the bowing, too. "Hey, we'll be killing chickens up at the manor all of this week … wanna come see the slaughter?"

She didn't know what she'd said wrong, but Himura's face closed up immediately. He was still smiling, and his eyes were still turned up, but it was as if he wasn't really behind the face he put on, as if it was just a mask. And somehow the crossed scar on his cheek stood out more than she'd ever seen it. She opened her mouth to ask – something, she wasn't sure what, but Sanosuke pulled himself out of the bag of money and said, "Sure, weasel girl. Better go now, otherwise you're gonna be in trouble."

She looked at Himura, who smiled at her, still in that detached oh-so-happy way, and was ready to ask what she's said wrong when she caught Sanosuke's eye, and instead of the money-love or the warmth or anything else, there was a warning. She could see it as clearly as if he'd written 'Back off!' in red on the front of his shirt. 

For once in her life, she listened. She backed off. She said good-bye and ran off the other way. And she wondered about the man with the red hair and the cross-shaped scar and the sword that he concealed beneath his coat.

~*~

"If you would bend your fingers instead of keeping them rigid – "

"Rigid? Who's keeping them _rigid_?"

"They're practically bent backwards."

"At least they're bent!"

"Misao."

"All right, all right – just – stay away, this time! I mean, I know you desperately need one, but I don't want to be the one to give you a haircut – "

"…"

"Whoops. Didn't mean that, Aoshi-sama!"

~*~

The kitchen was a mess. It generally wasn't the most spotless place in the house; if the whole manor was deserted, there was always some kind of activity in the kitchen, always some soup spilled on the stone counters and dirty dishes piled in a basin in the corner, but today … today it was a mess the likes of which Misao had never seen.

"Move up, Okon! I don't have enough elbow room!"

There were chickens. Everywhere. She'd never seen that many chickens in the same place before. Oh, sure, she'd been to the market back home in Kyoto often enough, but even there the poultry was kept in wooden cages, and Jiya always used to have the birds killed before he had them brought to his restaurant. That was how it was done here … usually.

"Damn it, Sano, you're gonna cut my arm off!"

But the local butcher was sick, and his son was manning the shop for the moment, inexperienced enough to have no idea how to deal with butchering of this scale, and Omasu and Okon had gathered up the entire team – along with about twenty chickens – to help out in the plucking and skinning and all-around killing. 

"Bleagh! Stupid rooster – "

And so here they were, packed together in the kitchen, chicken feathers in the air, squawks of panic coming from both human and chicken throats as Sanosuke wielded his butcher's cleaver with heart-stopping bad aim, blood spattering everywhere, chicken heads going into the huge blue bucket in one corner, and Kaoru chopped up the white meat, Yahiko flailing around with a headless, skinless chicken before falling flat on his face.

"Talking to yourself, Roosterhead?" 

She shook her head as she hacked up her own chicken, already decapitated by Sano. Whatever dish Omasu and Okon were planning, it definitely didn't require very symmetrically sized pieces … and if it did, there was going to be bad food along with knife-throwing at the dinner. She looked at her hands, not as bloody as Sanosuke and Yahiko's, but there were still rivulets running down her arm. It should have squicked her out, but it didn't. She'd had ninja training, after all, and what was a little blood to all that?

"Oh, shut up, Yahiko-_chan_."

A couple of feathers floated around and eventually settled in her hair, and another worked its way beneath her nose, causing her to sneeze all over the half-chopped chicken. Brushing the feather away angrily, she managed to smear blood and chicken-filth all over her nose, and was forced to sneeze again. 

"Don't call me '-chan', you idiot – "

Oh, hell. She'd just have to go wash her face or something. She stood up, and promptly banged her head against the base of a huge wooden tub Himura was helping Omasu carry. 

"Misao-dono! You should be more careful – "

She wasn't sure which of the two Himuras she could see was talking, but she smiled vaguely at both – and at the two Omasus, too – as she swayed towards the kitchen door. Her vision cleared as she stumbled out, rubbing her eyes – which just resulted in more feathers and horrible blood over her nose and forehead, and now here eyes were stinging, and – 

"If that knife comes within two feet of my hai – aaaahh! Sanosuke!"

– she hoped she was heading towards the stairs, because she really couldn't see anything – 

"Bloody hell!"

"Yeah, literally bloody!"

– and her foot hit something, and shit, she was already at the stairs and she hadn't seen, her eyes squeezed shut ... she was falling, her hands spread outwards to stop her fall, knees impacting with the hard wood of the staircase, nose crushed against the well-trod carpet …

"Damn it," she muttered, rubbing the back of her hand across her eyes and nose, which didn't really help the stinging. She felt her nose gingerly – it didn't _feel_ broken, but it throbbed like hell, and there was blood beneath it, but she wasn't sure if that was from her nose or from the chickens … "Well, it could have been worse," she told herself out loud. Maybe it _was_ her nose bleeding. "It could have been Aoshi-sama instead of the staircase."

Like one of those bad stories Omasu was always telling, a voice floated down from above her. "What – are you doing, Misao?"

A break? In his tone? Now that was something you didn't hear everyday. But she supposed even _he_ couldn't remain completely unsurprised to see his ward lying flat on her face at the foot of the hall staircase, face covered with blood and hair sprinkled with chicken feathers. 

"Climbing the stairs," she said, truthfully. That had been her intention, after all.

She supposed he might have raised an eyebrow, but since she couldn't see anything but vague bits of red carpet – red? Wasn't the carpet here beige? – she had to wait for him to reply, still rubbing her nose.

"I didn't know climbing the stairs resulted in nosebleeds." 

She would have stuck out her tongue, but she didn't want any of the stuff covering her face to make it into her mouth. Instead she said, with all the dignity she could manage, "I fell."

"Ah," he said. Or maybe he didn't, quite – he made some kind of acknowledging sound, and she assumed it was an 'ah'. 

"This is the part where you help me up and say that I should let you help me get washed up …" 

In response, she heard the rustle of clothing as he came closer, and then the slight displacement of air as he bent down. Her mind barely managed to form the thought: _What is he do – _before his hand grasped her forearm and pulled her to her feet. He let go at once, and she opened her eyes enough to see him standing three steps above her, a little bit of chicken blood on the inside of the cut-off black – armguards? – he was wearing. 

She knew she was completely going off on a tangent when she said, "You never wear those."

He looked down at his hands, where her gaze was directed, and said, "Not much, no."

"So why're you wearing them, then? Looks like you're going off to battle or something!" She'd meant it laughingly, but his face tightened, the grim line of his mouth thinning even more than usual. Now that she could see – somewhat – his usual clothes were different, too, all black and high-collared, although the trenchcoat was there, ever-present. 

He didn't say anything, and she blinked and said, "You're not _actually_ going off to fight someone, are you? 'Cause I thought your work was more – desklike – "

"No. But this is part of the work I do." 

"Huh," she said, stepping a little to the side so that he could continue down the stairs. "I haven't seen you really working for ages."

She couldn't believe he'd sighed, but he had. Almost. Imperceptibly. "Work was slacking, yes."

"So what do you really _do_? I've never figured it out." She crossed her arms, wiped off some traces of blood, and looked up at him.

He didn't deign to reply. He cut his eyes from her face to the stairs to the hallway around them, and then returned to her face silently. 'Must we have this conversation _here_?' was the question she could see in the way his eyes moved, and she grinned in response.

"Y'know, I'll ask you that later," she said, with the suggestion of a promise in her tone. "But – seriously – are you going to go beat people up? When will you be back?"

"Tomorrow. And, no."

"So why are you wearing those black things?"

"To make them think I'm going to."

"Beat them up?"

"Yes."

She grinned. "'Kay. See you later, then."

"Yes."

He walked down the hall, and paused just for a second in front of the kitchen door, his back to her, hair ruffling slightly in the breeze coming from the open front doors. "Misao?"

"Yeah?" she said, still on the first step.

"Why are there chicken feathers in your hair?"

"We're killing chickens," she said, with bloodthirsty enthusiasm.

"Ah," he said, and this time it was a definite 'ah'.

She grinned as she hurried upstairs to wash up, and was still grinning when she tumbled back into the kitchen to find Sanosuke and Yahiko brawling in the middle of the floor, and Omasu, Okon, and Kaoru cheering them on while Himura wearily chopped up the last couple of chickens, the floor littered with blood and feathers and chicken shit. 

~*~

"Aoshi-sama?"

"Yes?"

"You look like you just sat down on a cactus."

"…"

"Oh. _Oh_. I'm so sorry! I have no idea how that got there – I mean, I thought I'd picked up all the forks when I left – I can't imagine how I could have left one on your seat – "

"Please, Misao. Just eat."

"H-Hai … I mean, yes. Okay. Just – can I use my hands?"

"… no hands."

~*~

He'd been back home for a couple of days, and the dinner was tomorrow night. She'd sat through uncountable meals with him, now, and her stomach was growling as if she hadn't eaten for days, but he said that she would eat with a knife and fork and spoon, or she would _not_ eat, and Omasu and Okon would only smirk when she asked them for food. Her governess didn't come on Saturdays, and she would generally spend her morning running around outside – Shiro was planting seeds in some of the enclosed gardens, ready for the arrival of spring, and he would be grateful for her help – but she'd decided instead to wander into his rooms and annoy him a little. Because, God, she needed to see him outside of the context of a meal.

She knocked on the door of his office and got no reply. She knocked again, louder, slamming the flat of her hand against the wood, and then decided that if he was inside he would definitely have answered. Going inside and waiting for him to come back from wherever he was seemed a fairly good bet – he was never away from his beloved desk long. 

The room was deserted. The curtains were pulled back, sunlight streaming in from the windows, making refracted patterns on the floor near the desk. The desk itself was clear of all paperwork – it had been for some time now, he said that he'd much rather risk his own limbs than his documents – with nothing but a couple of paper shapes lying on it. She'd asked him about them, those small paper cranes with broken necks, and he'd said, very quietly, that origami interested him.

"Like books?" she had asked.

"Yes. Like books."

She settled herself in the chair on the other side of his desk, ready for him to turn up any minute, either from outside or from the adjoining door on one side of the room. She admired the fountain pen that lay on his desk – she expected someone like him to have a proper holder for it, but there was an inkpot and a pen and nothing to place either of the two things in – and unscrewed the top to look at the inside of it. Putting it back, she shifted around in her seat and waited. And waited. And waited.

Eventually it seemed to her that she just might fall asleep, the room comfortably warm and the chair indented with the pattern of her behind, and she forced herself to get up and wander around the room, exploring. She'd been here often enough to know what was here, but she'd never had a go at it all by herself. It wasn't the basics that interested her – she knew that there was a filing cabinet in the left-hand corner and a small coffee table in the other, and one wall made up of windows and the other holding the narrow door that led into an adjoining room she'd never been in. It was probably where he slept.

What interested her were the tiny knick-knacks scattered around the room – the discarded handguards lying on top of the file cupboard, the paper cranes on the table, a copy of 'The Art of War' on a shelf along the wall that contained the door she had entered from. What interested her was the air of the room, the orderliness that was never found in her space, in her domain, and the slight deviation from that same order that the carelessly thrown armguards provided. That was who he was, she thought; cold and straight-faced and stony … and just that much different, with so much more to him than the order and the cold and the barriers let on. 

She'd find out who he was, inside. One day, she'd find out.

She turned around to sit back in the chair she'd already almost fallen asleep in, but her movement was arrested by a sound from the half-closed door that connected his office with the inner room. Eyes narrowed, she crept towards it, wondering if she actually had the guts to push it open completely. It didn't make sense that he would be in there – he would have acknowledged her presence in this room, and she hadn't been quiet enough to make it impossible for him to have heard. But there was the unmistakable sound of footsteps, and the rustling of clothing, and she supposed it _had_ to be him, because who else would be in his room … 

She pushed the door open.

"Shit," she said. Out loud.

Surprised eyes met hers – and she was sure hers were wide enough to take up half her face, she was so shocked – blue-grey and glinting beneath gorgeously damp hair. Her mouth moved soundlessly, trying to manage something approximating an apology, but all that came out again was, "_Shit_."

He had his pants on. At least. She supposed she should be grateful for that, but somehow her mind had shut down and her mouth was connected to something that spoke nothing but the truth and nothing that she didn't think. That was _not_ her mind. Right now, her mouth was wide open – _you'll swallow a fly, Misao, _came Jiya's annoying voice from the not-mind part of her – as she tried not to focus on the shirt he only half-wore, one of his arms through one white sleeve, the other halfway to the other. And she could see everything else … muscles and chest and … scars …

"What are you doing here?"

Well, she had to give the man credit for keeping his cool. He sounded as if gaping girls wandered into his room while he was dressing almost every day. She brought her eyes up to his face – that should have been considerably safer, because she saw his face all the time – but his skin was all scrubbed clean right now, and his eyes were shining because his hair hung all dripping over them, and his hair really was much too long, but she thought vaguely that he should always keep it wet, because she'd never seen it look this good before …

He shrugged himself into his shirt – and the muscles rippled and moved and she was forced to blink, twice – and started buttoning it up. The white material fell over his fingers, and got in the way of the buttons. He repeated his question, "What are you doing here, Misao?"

"I was looking for you." Oh, thank God. Words. And an entire sentence that even made sense.

"You should have knocked." The admonition was mild, his voice not quite as cold as it had been that night on the stairs when _she_ hadn't been properly dressed. Hmph. Sexist man.

"I did," she said heatedly. "Loudly. Banged on the door is more what I did."

"Hm," he said, working on the last buttonhole. She loved it when his voice sounded all deep like that. "I must not have heard."

"Obviously," she said. "You were taking a bath?" Oh God, did she have to _ask_?

He didn't raise an eyebrow, didn't rub it in. "Yes," he said, cool as ever. Her own brain was still swimming. "I'll be with you in a minute."

"Hm," she said. "I mean … oh. Ah. Hai. I'll wait outside." 

He nodded, and she stepped out, bringing the narrow door shut behind her with a loud bang, and jumping at the noise. She put her hands to her cheeks and wasn't surprised to find them flaming. _Shit_. What had she been thinking, wandering in without a thought? Of _course_ he was taking a bath – sure, so she'd never seen him wet-haired in seven months of living here, but that didn't mean – damn it, she was getting incoherent, and this was not good. What was she supposed to say to him now? She glanced at the threshold of the door, checking for visible drool. That wouldn't be fun to explain.

Shit. How could she have just walked in?

The door opened again, and he had a coat over his shirt, and he looked much like usual, except for the fact that the coat was unbuttoned and his hair was wet … and the trenchcoat was missing, but that made sense, because he didn't always wear it inside the house … "I'm sorry," she said hastily, before the hair distracted her again.

He nodded and headed for the coffee table, where a couple of letters lay. Picking them up, perusing the addresses, he said, "It's not dinnertime yet. Did you want something?"

"I was bored," she said honestly. "And I thought I'd come and talk to you outside of a meal, you know?"

"Mm," he said, opening one of the letters. "I have some work to do, actually …"

"Argh," she said. "It's always food, work, food, work, '_No hands, Misao_ – ,' and then food, work, food …"

The air lightened a little, and she thought that meant that he was amused. "We can talk later, perhaps," he said.

"Or I could help you," she said. She couldn't leave now – she'd never get to see wet hair again …

His lips twitched a little, and she knew that meant a smirk and not a smile. His smile-look was different. "I doubt that."

"No, I could, really!" she said, warming to her theory. "Like, you're always writing stuff, and I could write it for you, and … I don't know, something like that!"

He shook his head, folding the letter back into its envelope and opening the second one. 

And his hair moved when he did that, and his eyes caught the light and seemed to glow, blue and grey and beautiful, and she had to say, "But can I stay anyway? I won't annoy you … I'll find something to do, there's some arithmetic I have to practice …"

For a minute she didn't think he was going to answer, because he went on reading the letter with a slight frown on his face, hair obscuring his eyes. But then he looked up and said distantly, "If you want," and she decided that that was the best assent she was ever going to get as she ran to get her mathematics work. She _always _had mathematics work. Girls weren't really taught numbers the same way – or at least numbers weren't given the same importance for them – but apparently Aoshi had insisted that the governess be impartial to the differences in girl-boy education, and she had been.

She spread her work out on her side of his desk, sitting down, and he placed his papers in a neat pile in front of him, and for a very long time there was no sound but the scratching of his pen and hers, and the shuffling of paper as he pulled out a new document, or as she turned a page. The sunlight streamed in through the windows, shifting and dancing as the clouds moved across the sky.

"Can I ask you a question, Aoshi-sama?" she said after a while.

"What is it?" he asked, without looking up. There was still the slightest of frowns on his face.

"Why are you actually having this dinner?"

He did look up now. He seemed unsurprised, but just the fact that he'd bothered to raise his head told her that he hadn't expected the question. His mouth opened, just a fraction, and she had the feeling that he was about to say something else before he settled for, "It is because of my work."

"Which involves …?"

"That is all confidential, Misao."

"I'm – "

"No."

She sighed. "All right. But – you can answer me with a simple yes or a no, can't you?"

"No."

"Are you using the dinner to spy on the people you're inviting?"

He paused, grey eyes boring into hers. "Yes."

She grinned. Victory. "Are they psychotic and dangerous?"

"Yes."

"Ooh. Will they come with weapons?"

He didn't reply to that, so she repeated her question. She watched his shoulders rise and fall, almost imperceptibly, as he sighed. "I expect better of them."

"So they won't?"

"I did not say that."

She made a face. "Can you be any vaguer? I mean, obviously you think they aren't life-threatening, because otherwise you wouldn't be inviting them so casually, and Omasu and Okon said they'd have their wives and … stuff … with them, so I'm guessing they won't be armed, but the way you're talking …"

"They should not be," he said, and turned back to his work, conversation over.

"But you think they will."

"No."

"You don't think that they will?"

"Misao."

She snapped her book shut and said, "Hey, I just want a proper answer!"

The frown on his face deepened, but he didn't seem to be as angry as the expression indicated. "I don't think that they will carry weapons with them. But I cannot be sure. Is that detailed enough for you?"

"Hai," she grinned, and didn't bother to check her lapse. "So you just plan to interrogate them?"

"Yes. Only not blatantly enough to have it classified as interrogation."

"Do they know who you are, and why you're calling them for this dinner?"

"They might."

"Do you _think_ they know?"

"No."

"And do you think – "

"Misao, please."

"What?" she said, chewing on the end of her pen.

"Let me work."

"Oh. Hai." She grinned, continuing to nibble her pen. "Ne, Aoshi-sama? What are _you_ going to be wearing tomorrow?"

Now he was scowling openly, eyebrows drawn together, drying hair falling over his eyes. "I really don't think that matters, Misao."

"None of my business, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Hmph," she said, dipping the tip of the pen in the inkpot they were sharing and proceeding to drip dark blue liquid over the polished top of the desk. 

~*~

"Oh my God! I have meat on my fork! Oh my _God_!"

"Yes. That _is_ an achievement."

"Okay, no need to get sarcastic. You're s'posed to be happy, Aoshi-sama!"

"I am."

"You don't look it."

"I'm more thankful that my hair has survived this."

"Yeah, you should be. And – oops. Shit, you think that'll leave a stain on the carpet?"

" … I suppose so."

"And here I was thinking we were ready."

"I think we're as ready as we'll ever be."

"That's not very encouraging."

"I know."

~*~


	14. 14

_These five words in my head …_

_~*~_

He was surprised to realise that he was nervous.

He had been worried about the dinner before, of course he had. He had been apprehensive and anxious and had found his trepidation the slightest bit funny, but he had thought, in the past few days, that he had resigned himself to what was to come, that there was no point in being nervous anymore because he had done what he could to prepare and now he would just have to face whatever was thrown at him.

But he couldn't get his tie right the first time he tried, and the silky material kept slipping through his fingers, refusing to knot at his collar, and his waistcoat didn't feel sufficiently pressed and he'd already had it sent down once for Omasu to iron it again, and she had whined and grumbled about how much work she still had to do and now having to heat the coal-iron all over _again_ …

He hadn't thought he'd still be nervous.

Maybe it wasn't nervousness, precisely. He straightened his coat, fixed the white gloves he was wearing to cover the handguards he had on underneath, and surveyed his room one last time. Maybe it was the air of anticipation that hung over the entire house, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath, waiting for the doom that was sure to come. Maybe it was the way Misao had looked at him in the morning, eyes sad and reproachful when he'd brushed her off, and then hardening to grim resolve as he walked away … she wasn't going to pull anything, was she? He wouldn't put it past her, but somehow he thought even she wouldn't jeopardize his work like that.

Then again, she'd already ripped up a precious document, thrown a knife in another, spilt orange juice over a third …

He shook his head, a short, sharp motion, and went into his office, going through all the information he had on Morrison before stashing it away in a doubled compartment in his filing cabinet. If the general was as sneaky as Symonds had made him out to be, he might manage to get up here – or get someone else up here – and it would be disastrous to have him find his documents. 

Locking his office was something he did often, but this time he locked the narrow door to his bedroom as well – just in case – before he left both and headed downstairs. The house seemed cleaner – and far quieter – than usual, the beige carpet all brushed in one direction, the decoration pieces in the withdrawing room and the hall straightened and dusted. He needed to look at the dining room, just to be satisfied; he'd already spoken to Omasu and Okon about the seating arrangements – where he wanted to sit, where he wanted General Morrison to be seated, where Misao should be put, next to him, so that he could cover up for any foibles on her part … 

The silver was set out, the utensils shining evilly in the dim candlelight. They'd put on the oil-lamps when the guests arrived, but not yet – Omasu and Okon were sticklers for economy. He looked at the array of cutlery, and couldn't help the stab of nervousness that clenched his stomach. All those different forks, for all those different foods, and the square-shaped spoons … His mouth clenched, determined to keep down the panic. If Morrison got decapitated before he could question him properly, he would only have himself to blame for being such a horrible teacher.

He supposed he should check on Misao. She should be ready by now, and he needed to make sure that she wasn't going to lose her temper and launch a glass of water – or worse, a couple of well-aimed knives – across the table. Perhaps he should have spoken to her when she came to him in the morning … but he had to commit everything he knew about the French infiltration to memory, and he couldn't with her distracting him like that … 

The door of her room was glaring at him before he knew it, and inside he could hear voices – Omasu (so much for her claims of work), Misao, high-pitched and excited, and another girl … he couldn't be sure, muffled as it was through the wood, but he thought it was the cleaning girl, Kaoru. If they were all in there, it probably meant that Misao was pretty much ready. He hoped.

He hoped, and he knocked.

There was the sound of laughing – giggling – and then the door swung open, the dark-haired girl who opened it already halfway through her sentence, "My God, Okon, what took you – you …"

He heard gasps behind her, and he looked past to see Omasu sitting on the bed, hair piled on her head, with Misao on the three-legged stool in front of her dressing table, wearing a white – shift – he supposed it was, because it looked even flimsier than her nightclothes, and … should he leave? Should he stay? Should he run for his life?

"Aoshi-sama!" said Omasu, getting to her feet. "I didn't think – "

He supposed it was best if he spoke now, before he clammed up completely and simply walked out. Did he want to walk out? He didn't think – "I just wanted to speak to Misao."

"Of course," Omasu said, grabbing Kaoru by the elbow and ushering her out. He stood there dumbly – ushering her _out_? Leaving? Him, here with her? What happened to propriety, to the laws of society that made sure everyone was decently covered in each other's presence?

She looked at him, slight blush staining her cheeks, looking just as usual, dark braid hanging down her back, blue-green eyes wide … smooth skin and slim arms and so _small_ … but with the hint of curves beneath the insubstantial material … "Hai, Aoshi-sama?" she said, and he knew the Japanese wasn't to annoy him – it was just because she was surprised.

"I thought you would be ready," he said, and it was the truth. 

"We – Omasu and Kaoru were waiting for Okon – it won't take very long, I promise, and … seriously. I won't be late."

He nodded. She continued to look at him, and he wondered how to ask what he had to … he could be tactful, he could weave a conversation to find out what he wanted, given time and motivation … but as distracted as he was right now, he knew he wasn't capable of it. So he did the only thing he could. He said, "Misao, are you planning to ruin the dinner?"

She blinked, and then started laughing. "God, no!" she grinned, eyes dancing. "I mean, I thought about it, but then – it's important to you – and – can't believe you actually asked me that." She bent over, still laughing, and he caught an uncomfortable glimpse and was forced to avert his eyes before she straightened.

He nodded once again, because there was nothing for him to do but nod and swallow and hope she didn't stand up and come towards him, because – "Thank you," he said, surprised at his own words.

She seemed slightly startled too, but then a smile spread across her features, glowing and beautiful, just like her. "You're welcome," she said. "I think. But if I feel really angry, I'll step on your foot or something, okay?"

His head moved of its own accord as he nodded once more. "As long as you don't pinch me."

She laughed again. "No worries, Aoshi-sama."

~*~

He was an isolationist by nature, and an isolationist by profession. He knew that, he was proud of it, almost, at his ability to be detached, to be outside – above, really – the rest of the world and its problems and its thoughts. He knew that that was why he lived here, in a huge hollow mansion that echoed with the whispers of past wrongs, a mansion separated from the rest of the busy social world, separated even from the small town it took its name from. Here, he could be apart. Here, he could work, and exist, and be _separate_. 

It was only at times such as these that he realised how cut off his world really was from the rest of society.

It was not that he didn't know what the rest of the world was like. It was not as if he never went abroad – he did, continuously – or that he had never met people to whom his own existence seemed monotonous and pointless. It was not as if he had never drawn comparisons between the cold silence of Misselthwaite Manor and the continuous hubbub in the London hotels he stayed in, or between his lonely – and he hadn't minded, before Misao – lifestyle and the colourful existence of the upper class circles he met in the city. 

It was just that he had never had that part of the world, that gay, painted, sordid side of society, intrude upon his space. 

He made a sharp distinction between his worlds – there was that world, the one that he worked for, out there, beyond Misselthwaite, the place where he carried out infiltrations and collected information, and then there was this, his refuge, where he was never forced to be anyone else, never forced to speak and pretend to smile. He did not like them to mesh. It made him think things he didn't like, things about his father and his mother he didn't want to face … it made him understand, when he looked at the superficiality of the people around him, what his mother was thinking when … and he didn't want to understand. He wanted to hate his father in peace.

"Why, Shinomori, I always understood you had a lot of lands left to you – but my word, this place is huge!"

"It is," he agreed, sipping his drink. Omasu had brought him water without anyone noticing – he was not a good drinker, and he knew he would be forced to hold down some wine later in the evening. He would prefer to get in as much water as he could, before that.

"Would you mind if I took a look around? I've always been interested in these old houses, and this manor has stood here for over two centuries, you said?"

Well, well, well. So Raleigh was in with Morrison. He hadn't expected that. He'd thought Morrison would have someone with a little more tact as his contact, not this bumbling fool who'd made his intentions of wandering around the house so very obvious. "Almost three, actually," he said calmly. Symonds was chatting up a group of women – trust him to get distracted that easily. He'd have to wait to give him the signal, after which he could keep an eye on Raleigh while Aoshi himself went over and got into conversation with Morrison. 

"You mean it's been standing here since the 1500s?" Raleigh's voice seemed interested enough, but his eyes lacked the spark of a true craze. Contact. Definitely. That was one success for the night, then. 

"Early 17th century," he corrected mildly. "1608, to be precise." Ah. Symonds had caught his eye; he raised his glass, tilted ever so slightly towards Raleigh, and saw the understanding in Symonds' slightly vapid eyes. "Would you excuse me a moment? I must speak with my ward." 

"Of course, of course," said Raleigh jovially as Symonds smiled himself out of the group of women and came towards them. "Pretty girl, your ward, even if she is – " He broke off, turning to Symonds with a slightly uncomfortable smile on his red face.

A tilted-eyed Jap. A yellow-skinned Chink. He knew what he had been going to say. He knew, because he had faced so much of it himself. He was half English, it was his only saving grace – but Misao … Misao had nothing but him to rely on in order to be accepted in a society like this, and what good was he? 

But he wasn't going to say anything. If he was angry, letting it out would get him nowhere. He was a professional, and he would do his job, take the taunts. Not that Raleigh had meant anything by what he said. In fact, he should be honoured that Raleigh had forgotten himself enough to say something like that in his presence – he had forgotten that Aoshi himself wasn't completely English. He had integrated himself _that_ much into their world. 

The thought didn't give him the satisfaction well done work usually did.

Misao was sitting by herself on the edge of a sofa, admiring the patterns of colour created by the champagne in her glass. Who'd served her champagne, anyway? He'd have to have a talk with Okon and Omasu about that. He walked over to her, thankful for the easy excuse she provided. 'I must speak with my ward.' It was so simple, withdrawing from a conversation with those words, going over to her and being able to say – nothing. An escape route, a believable one, and it was such a luxury to be able to find someone in a gathering like this to whom he didn't have to talk, with whom he didn't have to pretend … 

She looked up at him and smiled with such relief that he was tempted to smile back, except he didn't want her running out of the room screaming in joy. "Aoshi-sama! Thank God you're here. The woman behind you keeps glaring at me, and it's not my fault that she tried to talk and I couldn't help her out when she told me about how pretty her daughters were – I mean, I told her that I was sure my daughters could never be that pretty – and she went away all huffy …"

He knew it wasn't right for him to sit down beside her, not on that small sofa, but it wasn't correct for him to stand and her to sit the way she was sitting – all on the edge of her seat, looking up at him with those huge eyes. Oh, hell. Let the girl sit however she wanted – why should he restrict her anymore than she was already restricted? "Young women aren't supposed to talk about marriage and children so familiarly to someone they don't know," he said, keeping his voice as low as he could.

"She was talking to me about her children, and I can't talk to her about mine?"

"You don't _have_ any children, Misao."

"Exactly. So it's an unfair conversation from the start."

He took a sip from his glass, suppressing a sigh. It amused him, really, how she would give responses he had longed to, once, when he was younger – a longing dampened by age and resignation. And he knew he could be stricter, and firmer, and that he _should_ … but he didn't like the Misao he created by that, didn't like the meek girl with her polite answers, the way she had been at the beginning of the evening, quiet and suppressed, with those huge eyes staring out at everybody, until boredom had brought her back to a semblance of her usual self.

She looked all wrong, too. Not that she looked bad – far from it. He supposed, objectively, she looked prettier, far more womanly than she usually did. She was not – never would be – classically beautiful; too thin, eyes too big, lips and nose too small, but the gown was a deep colour that brought out her eyes, and her hair was caught up behind her head, a few loose curls draping over her shoulder, and the dress accentuated the curviness in her figure …

But he didn't like it.

It just wasn't her. Wasn't Misao. Misao was the girl who wore skirts knotted up above her knees, Misao was the girl with the long braid that whipped out behind her, twisted and turned with her every movement, lending her a grace and a sensuality this new hairstyle never could. He associated mobility with Misao, associated the constant change and flux of her moods and her conversations with the way her braid moved with every turn of her head, the way her limbs always moved fluid and unrestricted, the way she would forget herself and put her feet up on the edge of his desk, unhampered by propriety and the limitations that came with it.

And that wasn't the girl who sat before him now.

This girl had her knees tightly closed, had her thin shoulders straight, and her eyes laughing. This girl was a mix of both, and it wasn't a mix he liked. Oh, it was better than the so-polite girl from the beginning of the evening, but it still wasn't _her._

"Oh, come on, Aoshi-sama, don't zone out in the middle of a party!"

"I did not zone out," he said. "Keep your voice down."

She glanced around guiltily. "Sorry. And yes, you did. You got this scary 'grr' look on your face, and then you just blanked out completely, no expression … but your eyes went mushy …"

_Mushy?_ "I was thinking about my work, Misao."

"Hence the scowling. Why the mush, though?"

He racked his brains for a moment, looking for a good explanation – _I was thinking about you. General Morrison is the love of my life. _– and then decided that that remark was not worth a reply. But really, were his thoughts that transparent? Probably not – Misao tended to exaggerate things, most likely his eyes _had_ softened, but even that was unacceptable …

Okon's invitation to enter the dining room seemed like a very welcome interruption.

Dinner passed fairly uneventfully, considering it had been the part of the evening he had been dreading most. General Morrison deserved his reputation as an amazing spy; he talked like an accomplished man, spoke of the army in glowing terms, didn't seem to be close-mouthed about a single subject – but he told them nothing they didn't already know, didn't mention anything about the network in France, which either meant that he didn't know about it and that they were still safe, or that he did and he was toying with them, and never let anything slip about the decisions of the army or the government he shouldn't have known about and yet most definitely did – they had that on record from various other sources. 

On the more trivial side – and more immediately disastrous – Misao managed to labour her way through the three-course meal without too many side-effects. She slammed down on his foot twice, causing him to bite the inside of his cheek, and making General Morrison look at him oddly when he stopped speaking in mid-sentence in order to swallow a mouthful of food that wasn't there. And she spilt a goblet of cold water all over his thigh, at which Symonds had glanced at him askance as he put a calm hand to his face and did his best not to twitch in discomfort as the icy liquid soaked through his trousers and ran along his skin. But no one else saw – at least Misao was discreet in her mistakes – and she smiled and chattered throughout the dinner, making up for his preoccupation with the water on his leg and General Morrison. He didn't know where all that fluent conversation came from, but he was glad that it came, and scandalous as many of her comments were, at least they kept his guests occupied.

Afterwards, moving to the withdrawing room, the time for slightly more informal talk and airing of accomplishments – music the women could play, and such – he had come to realise that pumping Morrison for information was useless, and that he would just have to do what he could on his trip to France in a couple of weeks. He gave Symonds the signal – the one that meant, "All right, I've had enough, just _get out_ of my house!" – and Symonds stood up to take his leave. The other guests followed, with random comments about his lovely house, his lovely young ward, and his lovely dinner, all the way to the front door. 

He'd speak with Symonds later, discuss the ramifications of Raleigh being the contact with both him and Davidson afterwards. Right now, all he wanted was a cup of tea and some time in front of the fireplace, even though the fires were only lit occasionally now that summer was coming. He settled himself in an armchair after sticking his head into the kitchen and asking Omasu to make him some tea, watching the fire flicker in the grate. He rarely used this room, adjoining the dining room as it was – it was too public for him, not self-contained like the library, not _his_ like the office and bedroom upstairs. But it had been cleaned out just yesterday, and it looked warm and dull-edged in the dim firelight, so he'd sat down in it just for the sake of change …

Not that he liked change. He hated change. Always had.

Except for Misao. Misao was one change he hadn't minded. 

What he did mind, on the other hand, were his thoughts, his changing, shifting thoughts, the way his brain nose-dived when he was around her, like it had today when he'd walked into her room … That wasn't him. It was her who was ever-changing, attitudes and expressions and all, not him. He was fixed, his mind was fixed, his thoughts were fixed. He didn't like change. He didn't like his thoughts veering from the way they should be. And he _knew_ the way they should be.

"Aoshi-sama?" 

Her voice was clear, unhesitant, calling his eyes away from their obligatory perusal of the fire. He looked at her in the doorway, tea-tray in her hands, and said, "Come in, Misao."

She did, her walk so much different now that there was nobody – nobody but him – to see, bubbly and unrestrained, her steps longer, more unladylike, but never without their own kind of grace, because her legs weren't long enough to let her take huge strides. She sat down in the armchair opposite him, putting the tea tray down on the table between them, smiling at him.

"Omasu said I might as well take it, since I was going in to see you anyway," she said in answer to a question he hadn't even voiced. "You want me to put something in it? Milk, sugar?"

"I'll do it myself," he answered, bending forward. 

He had his tea in silence; she munched on a light, flaky pastry Okon and Omasu had designated as refreshments early in the evening. He assumed she wasn't partial to tea, or at least not the English version of it. He'd only had Japanese green tea once, and had quite liked it, but he was never going to tell his father that … and his father was the only one who had stashes of it somewhere …

She looked like Misao again. He watched her from over the rim of his teacup, trying to keep his eyes shuttered, clamping down on the joy he felt from the thin braid falling down her back – apparently she'd gone upstairs and redone her hair – from the haphazard locks of hair falling all around her face. She didn't look small and pinched anymore – well, small, always, but not pinched, not restricted, shoved into a role that wasn't hers … He half wanted to smile at her, wanted to tell her to be like this, always, reassure her that he liked this, that as much as he had hoped for – trained her, in fact, to eat and sit and walk properly, _this_ was the Misao he liked.

But he didn't. Because he just didn't say things like that.

"Are you done, Aoshi-sama? I need to take the cups back to Okon – she wants to soak all the dishes so that Tsubame can wash them in the morning – "

"Yes, thank you," he said, and he watched her pick up the tray and leave, the long dress, not bustled as the fashion was, swishing as she walked.

She was back in only a couple of minutes, holding up the skirt of her dress for better movement. She came and stood in front of him, right between him and the fireplace, making the room just that much darker, and then she spun. Twirled, let the dress flair out around her as her braid whipped in a circle and her feet flew, and she spun and she spun and she asked, "So what did you think? How did I look?"

He didn't know how to answer that. What _had_ he thought? He'd thought she'd done remarkably well, thought she'd looked insipid and un-Misao-like, thought he never wanted to see her at a proper party again. He'd thought that he was so lucky to have her there, to be able to talk to someone without having to _pretend_. He had thought that he wanted to see the girl who'd dumped snow over his carpet.

But now … God, now, he had no idea. Because now she was different. Glowing, spinning, the deep colour of the dress even darker in the dimly-lit room, the braid slipping across her shoulders, she was … Misao. And not Misao. She was a woman, with those pretty curves and dips in her skin, and that absolute lack of restraint that he had yet to find in anyone else. And she was Misao, who he liked otherwise, as well, who he liked as a person, who talked to him and came to him and made his world different. And he just couldn't decide who this twirling, pirouetting girl was.

She'd stopped now, looking at him with just that tiny bit of doubt in her eyes. What did she doubt? Herself, or him? "All right, if I told you that _you_ looked really good, would you tell me that I did, too?"

He had to reply. "You looked nice, Misao."

"And so did you, Aoshi-sama," she grinned back.

He wondered what it would be like to reach out, to feel all that skin pressed against him, to have her on his lap, legs around his waist … and he looked up at her, as she stood there, not two feet from him, just that slightest bit of red in her cheeks, firelight glinting golden off her collarbones, sharp and delicate, blue-green eyes smiling, and he thought … he thought she wouldn't mind.

He didn't know what made him think that, even for the tiny fleeting moment that that thought lasted, but he thought it all the same. That if he reached for her, now, she would blink, and be apprehensive, but she wouldn't pull away, she would let him … do what he wanted … because she … He didn't know. He didn't know why he would believe that, but he had, for that one moment where he'd looked into her eyes and had seen what he had wanted to see.

It had to be that. He had seen it because he wanted to see it. It wasn't there. It couldn't be. It made no sense.

The reality of the situation, as always, hit him a little late. Here he was, fully grown and – wanting – and there she was, young girl, smiling at him because she knew no better, because she didn't know how he would take it … or did she? Because she was still standing there, looking back at him with a curious expression on her face, and her skin was still golden in the light and there was this little lock of hair that was plastered across her cheek, and he wished …

It seemed as if it had been hours before she spoke, and he wasn't sure if it hadn't been. "And how about the rest of it? How'd I do?"

"Quite well, even though the water on my leg would indicate otherwise," he responded automatically, and if he had been thinking he would just have said 'quite well'. But he wasn't thinking, and he wasn't sure if she was, either, because she wasn't backing away, and she should, she was much too close, and the dress brought out her eyes far too well … and she was too _young_, only seventeen – not even that, yet – and why did he let his thoughts get so far?

She laughed, and said something, and he responded, and then she said something again, and once more he answered, and he had no idea what he said or what she said, and then she was leaving, still smiling, still holding up her dress as she left. 

And he sat there, staring into the fire and wishing it was as blank as it had been before she'd come in, when the changes in his thoughts hadn't been as acute as they suddenly were … Sat there, hands resting on the arms of the chair, palms scratching the silky surface of the upholstering, and imagining that feeling of imminent doom pressing him into his seat, suffocating him, inevitable, unavoidable.  

Because if he let himself believe that she would … that she thought … he didn't think he would last very long. Forget about not admitting his own thoughts, his own fears – there was no getting around it now, not after having taken it so far, having seen her like that, woman and Misao all in one in that evil, _evil_ dress … but to let himself actually entertain the thought that _she_ might think … that she might want …

He put his head back against the backrest of the chair, rolling his neck against the cushioning to smooth out the knots in his muscles. The walls and ceiling mocked him, laughed at him, and he had an urge to chuckle himself. He thought of that little – _imagined_! – spark in her eyes, and shuddered, and wished … and knew. Knew that his fate was written for him, the way fate was written for moths fluttering towards a flame. Knew that this was all wrong, because he didn't want her and he didn't need her, he didn't need _anybody_, he had needed his mother and she had left – 

He wondered if this was how his mother had felt. About his father. Felt the inevitability, the horror, the … loveliness … of it all. 

That was impossible. No one could have felt that way about his father. 

Just like Misao couldn't feel that way about him.

But he looked up at the ceiling, and thought, and knew that he wouldn't make it. He would – he very well could – if he knew that the thoughts he nursed were useless and broken, thoughts that meant nothing and would come to nothing, but if she … if she actually …

He shook his head, sharply. Conjecturing on nothing but a look, a flash of – _something_ – 

The walls laughed at him, and the air pressed down on him. Impending doom indeed.

~*~


	15. 15

_A/N:_ In three words: I'm so sorry.

* * *

_Scream, "Are we having fun yet?"_

Aoshi had said that the library wasn't very big, that it'd be easy enough to navigate. Aoshi had been dead wrong.

Shelves upon shelves of books, stuffed into a deceptively small room with shuttered windows, smelling of dank and dust and cold fireplaces, depressively ordered. She'd been wandering around here for hours, it seemed, squinting at the yellowing labels on the wooden shelves, assuming that there would be no more crooked turnings between the bookcases and always finding another two seconds later.

She hadn't meant to choose today to explore the library, but her governess had called in sick and wasn't coming in from her house in town, so she had the day off. And Aoshi was off on one of his business trips, so she couldn't hang around in his room either. It was the library, then, dark and tomb-like, because it was cold and slushy out in the gardens and she had no spares if her socks got wet.

Shelves on the right wall, he'd said. Well, if she could _find_ the right wall it'd be a start.

Eventually she found a window, encrusted with grime, its latch faulty. She had no idea which wall this window was set in, but it had a nice clean window seat, so she sat down there. Outside she could see Shiro and Kuro clearing mud from the driveway, trying to make an easy pathway for the arrival of Aoshi's carriage later in the day. At the gates, she could make out two dark figures, wrapped in scarves and coats the way everyone was – it was absurdly chilly for March – making their way into the grounds. She wondered who they were, but wasn't really bothered.

It felt strange to sit like this in this dank room, full of moldy books and untold stories. She felt as if she'd entered some other part of the house, almost like the way she used to feel when she entered Aoshi's rooms. Except now Aoshi's rooms didn't feel alien – they belonged to her as much as the grounds, or the kitchen. Not hers, but she was welcome there anyway.

But here, in the library, it was different. This place didn't feel possessed, the way Aoshi's rooms had, initially – possessed by him and all he thought right and fitting – but, in a way, it did. It was occupied, she felt, if not possessed.

She didn't believe in ghosts, or bakemono, or any of that – and she didn't think that right now she was talking about anything supernatural. It was just – a feeling that this room gave her.

Maybe it was the portrait staring down.

Right opposite the window, obscurely hung on the back of the bookshelf opposite this window seat, was a portrait of an Englishwoman, most likely Aoshi's mother. Or grandmother. She couldn't be sure – the woman didn't really resemble Aoshi, but then painting was an inexact art. Hair a dull shade of blonde, eyes blue but set much closer together than Aoshi's – attractive woman, perhaps, but not in this particular portrait.

To Misao, she seemed to have no distinguishing feature, nothing that would make you remember her a few days later. She didn't look tortured, or elated, or distant – she looked straight at the windowsill, polite smile on her face, and there was nothing different about her. Not the way there was something so very _different_ about Aoshi.

And yet … and yet she occupied this room, in her blank grimy sort of way, the way she had probably occupied this house, too.

She remembered the inn back home, with its wide airy windows and colourful shoji. At the floors that glowed when the morning sunlight spilled through. And she thought, more and more, that the way this house was – the way Aoshi was – was perhaps not completely his fault. That he wouldn't be so _not there_ if his mother hadn't been like this, if his dad hadn't left him as a child with as little place in proper society as he had had himself, if this house hadn't been so bloody huge …

She shook her head to snap herself out of her thoughts. If she wasn't careful, this house was going to eat away at her too.

Her scarf had slipped down from the leather covering of the window seat; she bent down to pick it up, ready to leave, and when she straightened there was a man standing in front of her.

She was a girl after all – she screamed.

"Shh," he said, slim finger raised to his lips. "Is Shinomori here?"

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded, taking a careful step back. Her calves hit the window seat, and she teetered. Did she remember _nothing_ of her ninja training?

"Is Shinomori here?"

"If you honestly think I'm gonna answer you when I don't have a clue who you are or what you're doing here – "

The man eyed her up and down, brown-yellow eyes and a sneer on his face. "You must be his ward. Younger than I expected."

She climbed backwards onto the window seat, keeping a good three feet between herself and the tall man. Standing up here, she could kick him directly in his face. It would have been more effective to go for his groin, but her position had been all wrong standing in front of him. "If you don't tell me who you are I will make you wish you were never born," she snarled.

The man smirked. She had never seen anyone _define_ a smirk like that. "Girl, if you give me an excuse to hurt you, it will give my life _meaning_. Now where is Shinomori?"

Her foot caught him on his left cheek, whipped his face around.

When his head snapped back, his eyes were glowing. With – joy? She couldn't be sure. Suddenly, she was actually _scared_. She had been freaked, of course, when she'd seen this man, but she'd thought there could be a reasonable explanation, and you didn't hit total strangers, of course you didn't, but it was just how she _was_ – and the look in this man's eyes now was just so – _dangerous._

He said, "My name is Saitou Hajime."

That sounded familiar. She didn't know why. "And that makes a difference to me because – ?"

His eyes narrowed further, if that was possible. "I've given you my name, ahou. I'm displaying trust."

She snorted. "And I'm displaying friendship," she said, brandishing her foot again.

The man – Saitou – rolled his eyes. "This is the last time. Where is Shinomori?"

"Not here," she said. It seemed a safe enough thing to say. And if worst came to worst, she could simply throw herself backwards, out of this window. Might hurt a horrible lot, but this man wouldn't be able to harm her.

The man shook his head. "The idiot."

"Aoshi-sama is _not_ an idiot – "

She'd totally set herself up for the smirk that he responded with. "Sama?" he said, raising one sardonic eyebrow. "Of course." And then, with just enough stress on the word, "Idiot."

This time her foot missed his face by a good six inches. She lost her balance and landed with an ungainly thud on the library carpet, the breath knocked out of her lungs.

The man smirked again. Honestly, he never _stopped_ smirking. "When will he be back?" he asked.

"I dunno," she answered, face still plastered to the floor.

"Give me a rough estimate," he said.

She picked herself up, glared at him. "I don't know," she said.

The man looked at her for a long second before saying, "Fine. I will wait for him downstairs."

She blinked at him. "Excuse me? You can't just stay here! Go home! I'll tell him you came – he can get in touch with you – "

He didn't bother to answer her. He simply turned and left, his shoes making a sharp tapping sound even against the moldy carpet. She ran after him, skirt held up in one hand, cold air hitting her knees.

"Okon!" she screamed when she reached the top of the stairs, as the man descended ahead of her.

Okon came running out, apron clutched in one hand. "Misao! What's wrong?" she said, clutching a hand to her chest.

"There's a strange man here!" she yelled.

The strange man in question didn't even falter in his stride. He made his way downstairs and sat down in one of the uncomfortable chairs in the entrance hall – right next to the table where Misao had almost broken that Chinese vase. That seemed so long ago, somehow.

Okon blinked. "There is?"

Maybe Misao had gone mad. Maybe she was hallucinating. Aoshi must keep stashes of poppies in the library. "Look!" she screamed, pointing at the man's back.

"Oh," said Okon, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Hajime-san, I forgot you hadn't met our ward. Misao, this is Saitou Hajime. He works with Aoshi-sama, sometimes. Saitou-san, this is Makimachi Misao – Aoshi-sama's ward."

"You're saying sorry to _him_?" she said, incredulous. "I'm the one he scared the shit out of!"

Saitou smirked, predictably, and said nothing.

Okon smiled. "I didn't know you hadn't met him. He's here frequently – I cannot imagine how you've avoided him all these months."

"I hide from her," said Saitou, sarcastic.

Misao wished for her kunai more than she ever had since she'd come to England. "He wants to talk to Aoshi-sama," she ground out, finally. "He refuses to leave."

Okon nodded calmly, turning to go back inside the kitchen. "He is welcome to wait – Aoshi-sama will be back this evening, after all."

"Welcome?" shrieked Misao, as Saitou smirked at the ceiling.

* * *

She kept a strict watch from her window, because she wanted to rail at Aoshi about the injustice of this man who was just allowed to walk in while no one bothered to even mention him to her, and she _lived_ here, damn it – but when his carriage did roll in, finally, Saitou walked out to meet it, so that he was already deep in conversation with Aoshi by the time Misao managed to get herself downstairs. 

"Mou!" she said, standing in front of that ill-fated vase.

Aoshi turned to look at her, and he didn't smile or even let his eyes crinkle, but she could sense, somehow, that he was glad to see her. She hoped fervently that Saitou couldn't sense that – she didn't know why, but she did. "Good evening, Misao," he said.

"I found this man in the library," she told him.

"Yes, he's told me. I'm sorry I didn't warn you that he would be coming."

"I don't think you knew."

Aoshi looked at her silently for a second. "We will talk later," he said, in the tone that brooked no argument.

"We better," she said threateningly, and stomped up the stairs.

* * *

Around ten o'clock, Okon asked her to help carry the dinner trays upstairs for Aoshi-sama and his – she couldn't believe Okon used the word – guest. She really wanted to refuse, but it meant that Okon would have to make two trips while only one of them received food and Misao just _knew_ that Saitou would get it first and she wasn't going to let that happen – 

They knocked loudly when they reached Aoshi's door, and the dull murmur of voices from behind the door faded at once. Inside, Saitou was sitting on the chair Misao usually occupied, and there was a closed file lying between them on the desk.

As Okon placed the tray of food in front of Saitou, and Misao positioned hers in front of Aoshi, Saitou said pointedly, "I think you will have to."

Aoshi nodded, eyes on the plate in front of him. "I will."

"Take the girl."

He looked up, and Misao wondered if they were talking about her. Aoshi said, "No."

Okon turned to leave, apparently ignoring this exchange, but Misao played her clumsy card and dropped a fork, and used up a few extra seconds in attempting to pick it up. Saitou said, "You'll have to."

"It's dangerous."

"You think it's safer otherwise?"

There was a pause, then. "I'll see what I can do," said Aoshi finally.

They didn't seem to be saying anything more, so Misao put the fork back in Aoshi's tray and turned to leave. She was almost at the door when she heard his voice call her, turned to hear him saying, "Can you come back in an hour or so, Misao?"

She looked at him, but his expression was unreadable. "Okay," she said, and when he didn't say anything else, she opened the door and walked out.

She came back in exactly an hour, because she really had nothing to do but lie around in her room and wait for time to pass, and imagine all the possible ways she could cause Saitou Hajime pain. Which was terribly entertaining, but without any real weapons at hand, her imagination wasn't working overdrive. And there was the prospect of a real talk with Aoshi looming …

When she knocked and went in he was sitting behind his desk as always, an oil lamp perched on his filing cabinet to light the room. There was no paperwork on the tabletop in front of him; it seemed oddly blank, as if someone had taken everything it had ever held and thrown it in the garbage somewhere, and then wiped it down with turpentine.

Clean slate? she wondered.

"I'm sorry Saitou shocked you," he said immediately, as she sat down. She was glad he didn't say scared. "I did not _know_ he was coming, that is true, but I did suspect he might."

She shrugged. "It's okay. But – thing is, he could've been anybody."

"Omasu wouldn't have let him in if he'd just been anybody."

"I didn't know Omasu let him in. I just thought he was some random man who'd turned up in the library. Which is a dark stinky _horrible_ place, by the way."

Tinge of a smile around his eyes, none on his face. "You didn't find anything you liked?"

She didn't want to disappoint him in some obscure way, so she said, "There was a nice window."

"I see," he said, and he sounded amused.

"There was a portrait, too, except I didn't really like it," she added thoughtfully.

The slight smile hovering around his eyes – around, never in – disappeared. "A portrait?" he said neutrally.

"Yeah." She didn't want to talk to him about it – well, she did, but she didn't think he wanted to talk about it with her. So she changed the subject. "What did Saitou want to talk about then?"

The answer should have been, "It's confidential, Misao." Instead Aoshi looked at her, directly, and said, "He believes I am being stupid."

She snorted. "He told me that."

Aoshi looked slightly surprised – or as surprised as he could ever look. "Did he?"

"He said you were an idiot."

In response, Aoshi smirked. Almost like Saitou himself.

"I hit him."

"You … hit him?"

"Yeah. Kicked, really."

"He let you?"

She was on her feet in an instant. "He did not _let_ me, I bloody well slammed my foot into his face and people don't exactly _let_ you do that – "

He held up a placating hand. "Saitou's a – talented man, a good fighter. If you managed to hit him – that's quite impressive."

She would have liked to swell with pride and take the praise, but she knew – "I caught him off-guard," she admitted honestly. "It didn't work the second time."

"You tried twice?"

She snorted. "'Course."

He inclined his head, ever so slightly. "Of course," he agreed, and he sounded amused. Again. There were a few seconds of silence – not uncomfortable, because his voice had been warm and she felt warm, herself – and then he said, "Misao?"

"Yeah?" she said.

"How would you like to go to London?"

She blinked. "What?"

She knew he disliked repeating himself, and his voice was blank when he said, "Would you like to go to London?"

"Um – I mean – when? How? With you? By myself? Why? I mean – I dunno!"

"A week from now. By – train. With me. For business purposes."

She grinned, but it was shaky. "You want to take me with you on a business trip?" she said, disbelieving.

He didn't say anything.

"Oh," she said. "This is what Saitou was talking about, isn't it? When we gave you dinner."

Eventually, he nodded. "We're very close to shutting down a spy we've been after for years. Except he is equally close to shutting us down as well. I want to beat him to it."

"Except you think he might turn up here while you – beat him to it?"

"If I am not quick enough, yes."

"Which is why you're taking me?"

"If you – " He paused, and this time, just maybe, the smile was in his eyes, not just around them. But she couldn't be sure. " – agree to come."

She grinned. "It's not like I'd kick _you_ in the face," she said.

"You never know," he said wryly.

She laughed. "So – so if I want to stay here, I could be in mortal danger?"

He hesitated, then he said, "Yes."

"Well, then, it's not like I have much choice, do I? I'm not suicidal yet."

The smile had faded from his eyes, and she hoped it would return, but it didn't. He just looked at her, expression unreadable again, but not cold. Not cold at all. After a while he said, "I've known that we were heading for this situation for a while now. But today, when Saitou told me how he managed to come inside unannounced, I actually realized that it – really is not safe here."

"You said yourself that he couldn't have walked in if Omasu hadn't let him."

Aoshi looked away. "Yes, he could."

She understood. If he had wanted to force his way inside, he could have. And Aoshi believed that things were coming to such a pass that people might actually force their way through the doors. It wouldn't be hard at all – they lived so far out from the village, with two other women and a couple of men who only came to the house occasionally – anyone attempting to break into the house would meet no real resistance if Aoshi wasn't here.

"What about Okon and Omasu?" she said.

"If we go to London," he answered, "I'd give them a couple of weeks off, make sure they leave this house. Even if they don't … I doubt they will be harmed."

"And I would be?" she said.

He looked at her, straight into her eyes. There was something there that scared her. When he said, "You are my ward," the words seemed too casual for that look in his eyes.

She thought she was supposed to understand something _big _here, but she didn't.

"It could be fun," she said musingly, after a pause. "I mean, I've been to London, but I haven't actually _seen_ it. I just caught the train to Yorkshire there, and it was dark and rainy and I couldn't see a thing." She thought for a second, then said, "Not that that's anything new."

He was looking at a point somewhere past her when she looked up, and it was a minute before he said, "All right. Good." He faced her again, then, and his eyes were no longer distant. "I'm glad we decided this without physical violence."

She grinned. "I wouldn't turn down a trip with you," she said artlessly.

There was something dark in his eyes, suddenly, and it occurred to her – vaguely – that she was reading him a little too well today. She didn't understand why a comment like that would upset him – she didn't mean anything _deep_ by it, it was just how it was … but … well, that was just how _he_ was.

A beat of silence, and then she got up with a smile plastered on her face. "Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Aoshi-sama. We'll leave in a week, right? That means there won't be any lessons after Friday! Ha!" She pushed her chair back and stood up, directing a wave at him.

At the doorway, he said, "Misao."

Hand on the door, she turned. "Mm?"

"Be careful," he said, and she wasn't sure what he was talking about. Only that he was very, very serious.

"'Course," she said, smiling, and shut the door on her way out.

* * *

_  
A/N_ (cont'd): It's been a hell of a long time, I know. I swore to myself, once, that I would not simply write a story because I felt obligated to write it. And I still agree with that – even as I believe that once an incomplete work is out for someone to read, you have a duty to finish it, and you're pretty dumb if you didn't think of losing interest in the very beginning. So … my compromise is this: I write only when I think I can, only when I feel the urge, but with the promise that I have _not_ abandoned this. Ever. Even if it may seem like it.  
Again … I'm really sorry. But we're on the wrap-up, now – I gave Saitou a cameo to put me in the writing mode again. You know how that is. Hehe. 


	16. 16

_  
Author Notes_: I've had this fic up here for a good two years now, and many things have changed drastically in that time. Most of all, my taste in music. If I was to see a story titled 'And This Is How You Remind Me' _now_, I wouldn't even click on it, because I couldn't bear reading something based on that kind of disposable pop-rock (no offence) …  
I still agree with the reason I chose this song – its particular theme – but the song itself … shudder. I find it deeply distressing that a Sex Pistols fan like myself _ever_ listened to this kind of music. Not that the Sex Pistols deserve to be used in this context – that's just ludicrous – but … well. I just needed to absolve myself of this.  
It's a little late to go back and change the title of the fic _and_ all the chapters, huh? (Kinda ironic to read the very next line here. Hehehe.)

_

* * *

_

_It's not like you didn't know that …  
_

He would have liked to take her by carriage, just the two of them; he wanted her to see the scenery change, wanted to point out landmarks she might have appreciated, wanted to tell her stories and bits of history that he knew. But instead here they were, stuck in a small booth in a rattling train that stank of old food and wet newspaper.

Misao was having an animated conversation with the elderly man sharing their booth, going on and on about how prices for poultry really didn't need to be so high. The man, top-hat slightly askew, seemed dumbstruck by her assumption that he would actually care about poultry costs, and had yet to interrupt her.

Aoshi considered distracting her and giving the man a breather, but he decided it would be far more rewarding to remain immersed in his book. He was rereading Gulliver's Travels; the satire was a sharp contrast to Misao's unfailingly cheerful outlook on the world, and he thought he needed to keep himself balanced if he was going to survive this trip with his sanity intact.

He didn't feel like going to the dining car for lunch, so Misao went by herself – the old man in tow – and returned with a plate filled with steak-and-kidney pie for him.

"They let you take cutlery out of the dining area?" he asked.

"'Let' is such a strong word," she said, grinning. She whipped out a spoon and dug into his plate.

"We're sharing?" he said, mildly disdainful.

"Oh, hey, it was hard enough smuggling out one plateful, I wasn't gonna risk another."

Fair enough, he thought, and let her finish half the food before taking another spoon from her and eating himself. He didn't rush himself the way she had, thinking, instead, that there was something oddly intimate about eating off the same plate, even if it was in turns … as if things between them weren't bound by the accepted laws of gender and propriety. And he supposed that they weren't.

It was a strange kind of freedom he felt, with her. He didn't quite understand it, but he didn't really want to. It was enough that he felt it.

"Where are we staying?" she said, after a while. The man sharing their booth wasn't back from lunch yet. If he knew what was good for him, he wouldn't be back for a while. "In London, I mean."

"Hotel," he said noncommittally.

"O-kay," she said. "What's it called? Where is it?"

"London."

"Mou," she said, exasperated, standing up and seating herself next to the window with a flounce. "Be that way, then."

He didn't say anything, amused.

"And don't give me that look," she said, annoyed.

"What look?" he said blandly.

"That ooh-I'm-about-to-break-out-laughing-but-_not_ thing that you do. Gah."

He must be losing control over his facial expressions – it was the only explanation for this. He shook his head slightly and went back to his book.

* * *

Dark, damp afternoon, a light drizzle causing a faint mist in the city air. Cobbled streets that would usually be packed with carriages and people were fairly empty; people would be out in the mornings, or the evenings, but not in the middle of an afternoon as dreary as this one. 

He would have preferred taking her sight-seeing on a sunnier day than this, but he had work to do and he didn't trust her alone on the streets of London. It was bad enough that he was here with her without a female chaperone … if he didn't keep a low profile, this would be talked about. A lot. And he didn't want to call any attention to himself just now.

They didn't get off in front of the Houses of Parliament because Aoshi didn't want to arrive at the hotel soaked, so Misao had to content herself with plastering her nose to the carriage window and staring up at Big Ben. He'd shown her St. Paul's already, but they hadn't been able to go inside because there were strict timings for visitors. She had been disappointed, and he'd promised to bring her back later.

"I've never been inside a church," she'd said, eyebrows turned down in a frown.

"Really?" he had said. His mother used to take him to church on Sundays, in Misselthwaite – he remembered it, vaguely. His father had never embraced the religion of the white man, but he'd let his mother have her freedom when it came to him. In certain respects.

"Yeah … never."

"We can come again tomorrow," he had found himself saying. "Or the day after."

Bright smile in her eyes, then, and a touch of something else. "You don't need to bribe me to behave, you know," she'd said, grinning.

He had sniffed, and she'd laughed.

They drove past the Tower of London before turning down towards the Kingston area, where they were staying in what Aoshi had told Misao was a hotel. It wasn't actually; it was the house they always rented out in London, whenever any of them was there on business. Rodney, the housekeeper, was the only permanent fixture there.

"This doesn't look much like a hotel," Misao said immediately, looking the red-brick building up and down.

"I wasn't going to tell you anything else in public," he said, almost-but-not-quite exasperated.

"There wasn't anyone in our booth when I asked," she said, turning to him. "I made sure."

"It was still in public," he said, motioning for the carriage driver to unload their bags. Misao followed him up the curving pathway that served as a drive, and peered over his shoulder as the front door was opened.

"Rodney," said Aoshi, nodding. "This is my ward, Makimachi Misao. Are our rooms ready?"

"Rooms? Oh yes, yes, Mr. Shinomori – " stuttered the man, gazing at Misao with blatant curiosity. "Your ward, you say?"

"I asked for two rooms," he said, sighing. "Are they ready?"

"Of – of course. I wasn't sure – but of course. Follow me."

The rooms were like they always were; nothing fabulous, nothing too bare either. Hers was down the hallway from his, and he was glad for the distance. It made things a little – easier. He started placing his clothing in the cupboards, knowing that if he left it for too long Rodney would pretend to be his valet and sort out his clothes himself. And he hated other people touching his belongings.

"Oy, Aoshi-sama," said Misao, poking her head around the door.

"Hm?" he said, turning.

"Ooh, are you unpacking? I'm thinking I'll just live out of the trunk for the week. Can't be bothered to sort out my stuff."

"Did you want something?" he said, trying to get her to focus.

"Huh?" She looked up from her perusal of his half-empty suitcase. "Oh, no, just bored."

Which meant that she wanted to sit here and he was supposed to entertain her. Or let her entertain him. Mostly, that would be fine by him, but today – today he could feel the brush of her hair as she dozed on his shoulder in the train, today he could see the twist of her mouth when she smiled standing too close to him, today … today he didn't think he could risk it.

"Didn't you bring a book or something?" he said, and he sounded stern but he felt helpless.

She stared at him. "What?" she said, blinking, then ignored him and plunked herself down on the bed in the middle of the room. His bed. "So I was wondering, what're we going to do tonight? Are you just going to work, or are we going to go out somewhere?"

He'd like to take her out, to the theatre maybe, show her how plays were different here, different from what little he knew about Japanese festivals. But – unmarried man, young un-chaperoned woman … it was just asking for attention. "Work," he said, shortly.

"Mou," she said, making a face. "What am I supposed to do, then?"

Annoy me, he wanted to say, but he didn't. He shrugged, and went back to unfolding his clothes. It felt odd, doing that in front of her, but she didn't seem fazed at all … and after a while, as she began to point out where to put what and why on earth men had ruffles on the front of their shirts, it almost felt – comfortable.

It was frightening, this freedom that kept creeping up on him when he was with her. He was so used to guarding himself, to showing a certain façade to the world, and it was unnerving to have someone in here with him, within the confines of his room, within his private space. Within his façade, not outside it.

"Zoning out again, Aoshi-sama," she said, and he heard the grin in her voice.

"I'm thinking," he said, slightly ruffled.

"Whatever."

He didn't deign to answer.

Saitou was right. She was getting too close; he wasn't dependable anymore. He was becoming – just like everybody else. Ties, a family, a … woman.

He wasn't sure he wanted to be dependable. Wasn't sure he wanted his status as their very best spy, as their most reliable informant. Most ruthless. There were … other things …

Dependency.

That's what it all came down to. The network depended on him – he had made sure that it would, worked hard to ensure that it did. They trusted him, and they needed him, and he thought that that was his due. And Misao … he depended on her. More and more. He trusted her, he supposed he needed her – he wasn't sure, though – and he knew that it was very, very wrong.

Except – did it matter?

She talked to him. She seemed to like him. Sometimes she looked at him and he wondered – he wondered things he shouldn't be allowed to, but he did, and he thought that she just might want … and he knew it was wrong. To depend on her like that. To think about her like that. Because she was his ward and she was Misao and –

It. Didn't. Matter.

Why not?

Because she cared for him. He knew that. It didn't mean anything deep or earth-rending, it was just something he knew. She had never attempted to hide it, or flaunt it. It was there, every time she came to talk to him, every odd sentence she let slip. I'd never turn down a trip with you.

And so … so if she did care for him, what was wrong with depending on her?

Hurt. Vulnerability. Yawning gaping chasm.

Fear.

He gave in. He sat down next to her, and he knew it was an out-of-character move for him when she looked at him with a puzzled frown on her face. "Aoshi-sama?" she said.

"Hm?" he said.

"Are you okay?" She leaned forward a little; he caught a whiff of the scented substance she used to wash her hair with. "Didn't know folding shirts was that tiring."

"It can be quite brutal," he said, only half-listening.

She grinned. "Yeah, I can see that." She scooted forward a little more, knees against the side of his leg, now. He remembered a wintry day back in her room, a similar situation. He remembered running. Maybe he wouldn't actually give in, just now, but he wasn't going to run.

They sat there in silence, her skirt scraping his trousers, her shoulders hunched forwards, his weight on his hands. He felt oppressed by the silence, felt that he should say something, tell her something. Something big. He felt she needed to know that he liked her except he wasn't sure how much and if it was enough, and that she shouldn't like him because there was really nothing in him to like, except she couldn't know that unless he let her in and he wasn't going to let her in. He felt that he should tell her to stay the hell away from him, except here he was sitting down closer to her than he ever let himself.

"Listen, Aoshi-sama – " she began, and he was scared to death of what might come out of her mouth.

But it was nothing he should have been worried about; she said, "You can't let the clothes leave you whipped like this, all right? You've gotta show some authority."

He looked at her blankly; he wondered if she had actually only been thinking about his unpacking while he thought of life and love and – everything. But there was something in her eyes, in the little crinkles around her mouth … she knew. She didn't know quite what he'd been thinking, but she knew that it had been – significant. He could see that. And he knew this was her way of making things easier for him.

He was grateful.

"Authority?" he said caustically. "I'm not facing an army of shirts, Misao."

"You've got the army, you just don't have the command," she said, grinning, and he let himself slip into the banter.

* * *

When he was near her, it was somehow easier to let himself believe that there was nothing wrong with depending on her, needing her. Sitting in the dingy building they used for covert telegraphs, surrounded by papers documenting murder and intrigue, he couldn't imagine why he would ever think that dependency wasn't harmful. 

"Unaccounted for?" he asked Dunham.

"Yes. We have no clue where they are."

"What about Samuels?"

"Out of contact."

He looked down at the yellow slip of paper in his hands. "Dead?" he asked, although he knew Dunham knew no more than the telegram told him.

Dunham shrugged, brown hair standing up in all directions on his head. "Possibly. I think he's hiding, though."

Aoshi nodded; Samuels went into hiding at the slightest hint of danger. But if he was dead … he didn't want to lose Samuels – he was a good man, if a little flighty, and he knew too much to be captured and interrogated. Ah well. "Two men," he said to Dunham. Dunham, who'd been working with him for a good six years now, knew exactly what he meant.

"I can't search all of London for them," he said helplessly.

"You have to try." Aoshi knew his voice was hard. "We're too close for two of the General's men to shut us down now."

"They're following you, most likely," Dunham said.

He knew that. He hadn't expected a tail, but he'd had his eyes open, and he didn't think anyone had been following them since their arrival the day before. He couldn't risk making a mistake, though – Misao was here, and he was supposed to be keeping her safe, not leading her into even more danger than she would have been in back home.

"I need a few men," he said abruptly.

Dunham blinked. "For what?"

"I want them to watch the Kingston house."

"Why? Old Rod's the only one there."

Aoshi didn't say anything. Damn Saitou and his misplaced advice. This wasn't Saitou's fault, of course, it was just coincidence that they would be followed here instead of in Misselthwaite, but he didn't care about coincidence, he just wanted the freedom to be able to adapt to a change in circumstances and with Misao there he was severely hampered.

And severely worried.

"I've got someone with me," he said tersely.

Irritated, he saw the curiosity spark in Dunham's eyes, saw the questions rise to his lips. "Really? Who? Why?"

He glared at him, tried to make it as cold as possible when he said, "It doesn't matter. But I want protection there."

Dunham swallowed his queries, and said, suddenly sharp, "This isn't like you."

No, it wasn't. He knew that. He sighed and said nothing.

* * *

She was curled up in the armchair next to his window when he got back, a Japanese book clutched in her fingers. He couldn't read Japanese, so he didn't know what it was about – he was surprised enough that it was a book. Her eyes were closed, her face turned slightly towards the window; there was something wistful about her pose, something that made him feel strangely sad. 

Her eyes snapped open as soon as he stepped in, so it was obvious that she hadn't been sleeping. "Hi," she said, slow smile on her face.

He nodded at her in greeting, then went into the adjoining room to wash his hands and face. She was still there when he returned, and he didn't know why he'd thought she wouldn't be. Uncharacteristically, he decided to make conversation, saying, "Have you eaten?"

"Oh, yeah," she said. "Long time ago. Told the old guy I was going to bed, but I wasn't sleepy, so I thought I'd stay here and wait for you."

Huh. He sat down on the bed, leaning down to unlace his shoes. He felt that strange feeling of intimacy again, of a connection without the barriers of propriety and decorum. It was liberating.

"I have work to do," he told her, because it was true. Because he was scared of her staying here too long.

"Still?" she said, making a face. "But you've been out working all day."

He shrugged.

"Can I – hang around? I won't bother you, seriously."

She didn't need to bother him to be a distraction. But – he shrugged again.

"I'm guessing that's a yes," she said, drawing her knees to her chest and snuggling back into the armchair.

He placed his trenchcoat in the leftmost of the cupboards lining the right wall, and seated himself at the small table in one corner. He had to slouch awkwardly – the table was nothing more than a coffee table, and far too low to act as a desk, but he wasn't the kind of person who could do paperwork sitting on a bed, or the floor.

She talked to him occasionally, shared observations about London, about life outside the window she was facing. It wasn't as distracting as it could have been. Once or twice she ventured downstairs and brought him back a cupcake, or a glass of juice. It was very late, and if Rodney was to make a round through the house for any reason at all, he would be scandalized beyond measure, but Aoshi couldn't bring himself to turn her out. She wasn't doing anything improper, and he was just working, and it was so easy.

It scared him. Because …

Because he could get used to this.

And he had learnt early enough to never treat anything in his life as a permanent fixture. Dependency was wrong because it hurt.

But it didn't hurt just now. Didn't hurt at all, seeing her profile outlined against the moonlit window, seeing her smile in the dark, just for him.

His distance, his reserve – it wasn't about her anymore. It had been, initially, about her trust and her position as his ward and just her, but now … now it was all about him. Was he willing to give her any semblance of control over his life? Was it too late already? Had they reached a point where that decision was out of his hands?

Was he willing to take the risk?

It could hurt. It probably would.

She set the plate down in front of him, and returned to her seat by the window. This time it was a muffin, and he wondered if she was raiding Rodney's breakfast supplies. He looked up at her, and she caught his eyes. She smiled, then, slow and comfortable and almost mischievous, and he felt something twist inside him.

He could get used to this.

* * *

_Author Notes _(cont'd): I'm having formatting troubles. And I _hate_ messed-up formatting - it takes away every bit of reading pleasure.  
I'll come back and fix it, I think. This'll have to do, for now ... 


	17. 17

_Author Notes_: For those of you who have been waiting a very long time for a certain event to take place in this fic … well, I have my reasons. First and foremost, I don't see Aoshi as the kind of man who'd kiss and run. If he's going to give in, he's going to make a decision first. The guy's got a lot of self-control, you know? I think he has moments of internal weakness aplenty (we've all seen that), but he wouldn't give in to those thoughts until he was _sure._ And he's got to get over himself before he can be sure – and sometimes, it's not that easy to get over yourself.  
And sometimes, the process can be catalysed. Watch.

_

* * *

_

_I said I love you and I swear I still do._

Sun in her eyes, red warmth behind her eyelids. Hand on her shoulder. Voice, murmuring, soft, insistent. She stirred, her thoughts slow in her sleep-dulled brain. Polyester upholstery marking her face. Crick in her neck. Uncomfortable tingling in her fingers.

"Misao?"

Voice again, pitched low, pleasant. She cracked open an eye, squinting against the glare of the light streaming in from the open window. "Aoshi-sama?"

Aoshi took a step back once she opened her eyes; she looked up at him, confused. He was dressed, and not in yesterday's clothes, but she was quite sure she was still in his room … she took a quick glance around to get her bearings, looked down at herself and her position in the armchair, and said, "What the hell?"

He seemed amused. "You went to sleep here," he said, as if that explained everything.

It didn't. "Uh, so? You should've woken me up and sent me packing." She sat up, wincing as her back made a snapping sound in protest. "Now my neck's broken."

He blinked. "You refused to go."

"Huh?"

"Last night," he said. "I tried to wake you up, but you refused."

"Oh." She could understand that. It was known to happen – Jiya had always hated that about her sleeping habits. "Well … sorry about that."

He was looking at her, and his gaze wasn't warm or amused or even cold, he was just – looking. It made her uncomfortable, so she said, narrowing her eyes, "Where did you sleep?" The implications of him having shared the room with her hit her as soon as the words left her mouth, and she felt the blush rising in her cheeks.

"Rodney has the room next door done up as well. It wasn't a problem." He didn't seem perturbed; girls forced him to sleep in different rooms everyday, it seemed. She could vaguely remember having a similar thought before, but her brain wasn't working too quick just now, she couldn't remember exactly when.

"Oh," she said stupidly. "That's good then."

There was a beat of silence, and then he said, "It's almost noon. Breakfast's been cleared up, but I can arrange for an early lunch for you."

She processed that. "_You_ can arrange?" she said eventually.

"I can ask Rodney to ask the woman to come in and get you lunch," he said, crinkles around his eyes.

"Bah. I thought it'd be more impressive than that."

He had a comeback to that, she could see it in his eyes, but he kept it to himself. One day he wouldn't, she swore to herself, one day if he had something sarcastic or annoying or even funny to say, he would _say_ it. To her.

She hoped.

She thought he would leave, now that he'd woken her up and told her how to get her meal, but instead he just stood there, looking down at her, and she was acutely aware of the sleep sticking her eyelids together, of the mark of the armchair's upholstery branded across her cheek. She looked back at him, because she was fully capable of giving as good as she got – looked at the hair falling across his eyes and the slightly crooked collar of the trenchcoat. She wished she could reach out and straighten it, just because – she wished she was allowed that much.

She didn't think that she would be the one to break the silence, so that when the words came from her she was surprised: "Don't you have work today?"

He took a step back, and she cursed herself for opening her mouth. "I do, but it's just decoding. I can do that here."

"Hey, you haven't done any decoding for a while," she said.

Something changed in his eyes. "How would you know?"

She shrugged. "You're always up and out these days – when you used to do code-breaking, you always sat in a corner somewhere."

The wary look disappeared, leaving behind his typical neutral stare. "Yes." He headed over to the coffee table in the corner of the room, seating himself in the straight-backed chair next to it. That seemed more like his usual self – telling her to get out without a word.

She grinned and got up, stretching. He ignored her. "See ya later, Aoshi-sama," she said, heading towards the door, catching his nod out of the corner of her eye. "Thanks for lending me your armchair."

She could swear that she only imagined the sarcastic, "Don't mention it," she heard in reply.

* * *

It was the kind of pretty day that rarely ever came to England, the kind where the rain left everything washed and clean, where the leaves glowed green and the sky was an endless blue, where the grass was soft and springy, where even the uniform brick houses of Kingston looked inviting and comfortable.

She couldn't bear the idea of staying inside, so she'd grabbed a cloak and stuffed an extra pair of socks into her satchel and decided to trek to the end of the road – which was only a five-minute walk, but considering it was London and Aoshi had given her a long lecture on how girls were not supposed to wander around unaccompanied, it seemed like a great adventure.

She was quite aware of how pathetic life in Britain was making her, but she took what excitement she could get.

There were very few people on the street, especially in light of the loveliness of the weather; there was an elderly couple strolling down the sidewalk a few feet ahead of her, and two men at the far corner, where the houses stopped having tiny patches of greenery in front of them and were replaced by proper gardens, extensive and well-kept. She looked at the gardens wistfully, remembering the expanse of greenery surrounding Misselthwaite.

It was the closest she'd ever come to homesickness for the manor. It made her wonder if it was finally home after all. If she was finally a _part_ of it.

If she missed it, she had to be, didn't she?

She reached the end of the street, and was sorely tempted to turn left and explore the locale a little more; it seemed a safe, quiet sort of place, she had no clue what Aoshi had been so worried about. It wasn't like she was rushing into seedy bars and whorehouses. She tucked the cloak closely around herself – it was best to hide as much skin as possible when venturing into unfamiliar territory (shorts or no shorts, she knew this) – and stepped off the sidewalk to cross the street, when a man approached her, hat in hand.

Another thing she knew was to avoid strangers, but the man simply smiled at her and walked on, and she smiled back out of politeness. She turned the corner, and someone else brushed past her, forcing her to take a step to the left – right against the wall surrounding one of the larger houses.

And just as suddenly there were hands clamping around her upper arms, her foot was swinging out to catch whoever it was in the shins, there was a muffled yelp – but she was still being dragged through a door in the wall – the sky, so very blue, spun dizzily above her as she thrashed her arms and legs, screaming, fighting to get free, wishing she had some weapons, wishing she'd kept up with her ninja training after her arrival here – pretty grass, pretty garden – so green –

"Sh't'up!" hissed a voice in her ear, as she yelled for help.

"Let _go_!" she screamed in response, landing another kick – somewhere soft, possibly a stomach, she wasn't sure. The man did let her go, only to have his accomplice grab her from the other side. His fingers were rough on her arms, her shoulders – she remembered Aoshi shaking her awake, touch feather-soft, and shuddered with something like fear.

"Who the hell are you?" she said, wincing as the man's grip tightened.

They didn't look like low-class ruffians, but neither did they seem to be the overly-educated gentlemen they were dressed as (hats and canes and all). Were they random thugs, were they connected to Aoshi, was she supposed to tell them who she was so that they'd let her go, or keep _shut_ so that they'd let her go? What the hell were they going to do with her?

They ignored her, looked over her head at one another. She kicked out with her legs again – her hands were immobilized – but the other man grabbed her ankles, and they held her between them like a sack. Her shoulders were screaming in pain, the awkward position from her night in the armchair combined with the man's hands attempting to cut off her blood circulation.

"So?" said the one holding her feet.

"We stash her," said the other, but he didn't sound very sure.

"How's that goin' ta help?"

"General says he'll slip up."

"She's out here, he's already slipped, man."

The General. Oh God. These were Aoshi's spies, these were the people she was supposed to be kept safe from – shit, she should've told him she was going out for a walk, she shouldn't have come, she should have –

_He's already slipped, man_.

Shit.

She struggled again, whipped and tugged and pulled and screamed for all she was worth. Fear for the mess she was making of Aoshi's hard work, fear for him, fear for herself, fear of _helplessness_ – it drove her, she was desperate, she got her legs free, got the man behind her in the groin and made a dash across the expanse of lawn –

She made it two steps, perhaps, before one of the men tackled her. She hit the ground with a thud, the man's weight atop her, and now she actually couldn't move. He didn't get up; she could feel every inch of him pressing into her, she felt dirty, unclean, she could hear every sordid story Omasu and Okon had ever told her, she could feel fear, coursing through her veins, thick as blood, pounding, pounding –

He released her, eventually, but the feeling of helplessness remained. The realization that it didn't matter how strong she thought herself, how much defiance she showed – she was still a woman, and a small one. They could outdo her in sheer physical size.

"Gotta tie her up," said one of them. She lay face down in the grass, wondering if it was worth getting up and running again. She knew she wouldn't get far … but was it worth the attempt? She didn't want the man falling on her again, not like that …

"Fainted, has she?" said the other. "Most of 'em would have, by now."

A shoe prodded her side. "Nah. C'mon, get her up, let's take her in."

She stood up immediately. Maybe she could try this the civilized way. "Look, I'm sure there's been a mistake – " she began unconvincingly.

"There ain't no mistake," said the one who'd held her feet. Blondish hair and a split lip. "Your eyes give you away, Chink."

And racist to boot. This wasn't going to be pretty. "God, you could at least do your research, I'm _Japanese_ – "

The second man made a grab for her arms; she twisted away, and the first one caught her wrists, crossing her arms across the front of her chest. Tight. It hurt. "You just keep yer mouth shut, understand?"

"If you think – "

Then there was blackness. For a disoriented second she thought maybe she was unconscious, but she could feel her eyes blinking and the pain wrenching her shoulders apart, and the soft sensation of cloth on her hair … and she realized they must have put some kind of bag over her head. She felt her breath shortening in panic, and tried to level it out, tried to suppress the questions in her head. Shh. One step at a time. Find out who they are. Where they're going.

How to get to Aoshi.

No panic.

Breathing. Breathing was good.

She tried to listen to what the men were saying, but they were keeping their voices down, and the bag was muffling what little she could hear. She caught disconnected words like "him" and "never" and "Kingston", all of which were useless to her.

One of the men picked her up. She didn't struggle; she was saving a good kick for when they put her down. He carried her heroine-style, one arm beneath her shoulders and the other hooked under her legs, and she felt inexplicably violated – as if some cliché that she should get to live out was being taken away from her. His hands were hard, unfeeling; she hoped he didn't stink – she couldn't tell herself because her nostrils could only smell something vaguely vegetable-like from the bag over her head.

It occurred to her, inanely, that this was the most a man had ever touched her, and she thought she might vomit. She remembered her first kiss, almost an experiment, back when she was fourteen, when she'd dared her neighbour Soujirou into pecking her on the lips and he'd taken her up on it – and they'd both been so shocked that he'd done it –

She wanted to cry, suddenly.

* * *

The first thing she tried to do, as soon as she was completely inside the room, was climb out the skylight. The only problem was that it was a good five feet above her head, and the room was bare except for a couple of collapsed cardboard boxes in one corner – nothing to give her the extra height she needed.

The door had been locked behind her; she'd heard one of the men slide the bolt home as well. She slammed her shoulder against it anyway, pulled out the twine that tied her hair and attempted to pick the lock – not that it mattered if she got it open, because the bolt would still be there – but nothing happened.

So she took a deep breath, seated herself in a corner, and decided to think. She decided to wait. She decided to be hopeful and optimistic and shit_-_scared. Because there was nothing else she could do.

* * *

Dark room, cold draft from under the door, from the crack in the skylight. Damp floor, puddle of water from a leaky pipe in the ceiling, suspicious wetness just under the door. Dankness. She was cold, cold to the depths of her being, her bones, her flesh, the inside of her eyelids. Everything was cold. She'd lost her cloak at some point in the past day and a half, and her dress was too flimsy to be much protection against the current of air coming in through the skylight.

She was tired. Hungry. Afraid.

Bored.

She just wished something would _happen_. She wished they would tell her that Aoshi wasn't coming. She wished they would tell her that he was. She wished they would come to this room and drag her down the stairs and force her to tell them all that she knew about Aoshi's work. She wished they would tell her that she should prepare to die a horrible death, that the only thing that awaited her was rape and slavery.

She wanted to know. She wanted to be able to prepare herself. She had spent a day and a night and a whole other day inside her head, and she was tired of guilt and what-ifs and – all of it. She wanted to know. She wanted to get over with it.

There was something monotonous about being afraid for so long. Something dull and slow and bone-tying. She felt as if someone had done her up in knots and picking them apart was too boring a job to attempt. Better to leave it that way.

She didn't feel like herself. She supposed hunger did that to you.

She wondered what would happen if he didn't come. But the thought didn't scare her like it had twelve hours ago. The gnawing in her stomach was more important, and the crack in the skylight. If she was only tall enough to close it – if she could only get warm –

There was a man in the doorway.

She supposed he might have been there for a while; she didn't understand why she hadn't noticed. There was something almost painful in her chest as she tried to make out his outline – but he was too broad to be Aoshi, the collar of his coat too straight. Something approximating a sob rose in her throat, but she pushed it down. Didn't know where it came from.

"So you're the ward," said the man, and his voice was – familiar.

Her mind flashed to days of learning how to hold a knife and fork, of warm dinners in Aoshi's room, preparing for a – showdown. Remembered the polite man, the 'General'. "What?" she croaked, and she didn't know why she was playing dumb. Maybe because she was?

"I'd thought you might just be a ploy. But it's real." There was some kind of smile in the man's voice. She felt dazed. "I suppose family catches up to the best of us."

"I'm not family," she said, because that was the only part she understood.

The man took a step forward, and ended up stepping in the puddle on the floor. He grimaced. "You're his ward, girl. That's close enough."

She wasn't really close enough. Not to him. No one ever was. Didn't this man know anything? She snorted, and it was an odd, choked sound. "You know me," she said. "Why're you acting like you don't?"

She heard him say, "Real," in a low voice before he turned and left, shutting the door behind him. She heard, as if from a great distance, the lock turning, the bolts sliding home.

Perhaps she could think this through, perhaps she could figure out this conversation, this whole plot, if they would give her a warm blanket and a bowl of soup. That was all she needed. She just wanted her brain to _work_. She wanted to snap out of these disconnected half-thoughts that pervaded her brain, these snippets of memory – Aoshi and Japan and Jiya and cholera and Misselthwaite and – food and love and blue eyes and sunlight in the mornings and frilly duvets at night – dark and light and Tanabata –

At some point, she fell asleep. But she never noticed, because her dreams followed the same disjointed pattern as her thoughts.

* * *

_A/N_: We're very close, now. 


	18. 18

_And it must have been so bad ..._

* * *

There was no panic in his mind. His blood didn't pound with worry, his thoughts didn't scramble over one another, his throat didn't seize up in terror. He knew what had happened, he knew what he had to do, he knew what he had to give up – and he did it.

No panic. No regret. No worry.

No hurt. Not really.

Smattering of blood across the front of his trenchcoat, beautifully straight line, and he found himself staring. Circle of blood on the floor, staining the patterned carpet. He stared at Morrison's head, at all the secrets he needed to know, leaking out onto the floor with his life's blood. Four years. Four years he'd been after this man, after what he'd known. After his network.

The General.

But his name was just Morrison and he was just a spy like Aoshi himself and he had to die.

Because.

No hurt. Not really.

The steps creaked under his weight, but it didn't matter because there was no one in the house to hear the noise. No one alive. Many doors on the first landing, and he tried them all. Slid back each bolt, sprung each lock.

No one alive.

Second-last floor then, two doors on the landing. One swung open to reveal a bare room with the remainder of a meal littered across its floor, and the other wouldn't open at all. Even after he picked the lock, the knob simply wouldn't turn.

So he smashed it in.

She was there.

Propped up against the wall, arms curled around her legs, head nestled between her knees. Black hair, grey dress, unmistakably her.

He waited for the rush of relief to overtake him, waited for the roaring in his head that was sure to come. Waited for himself to step forward and gather her into his arms and tell her that he was sorry, that he would never let anything touch her again.

But nothing happened.

He stood there, in the doorway, the broken lock hanging disconcertingly from the door. She sat there, and she didn't even raise her head.

A dark feeling of unreality stole over him, as if the past two days had never happened, as if she had never disappeared from the safety of his room, as if any minute now the past year would simply vanish from memory, from existence. As if he would find himself sitting behind his desk in his darkened room in the manor and never know of a world outside it.

It had to have been some time before he forced himself to move forward, but he had no idea how long. Some part of his mind registered the cold in the room, the half-open skylight, the remnants of last night's rain on the wooden floor. He bent down, close to her, and the usual smell of her hair was faint. Washed out.

He touched her shoulder, his mind forcibly wrenching back to a morning two days ago, when he'd shaken her awake in his armchair.

No hurt?

God, it hurt like hell.

Her eyes were bleary when they opened, unfocused and empty of recognition. Lack of food, water – too much cold – he'd been in his share of tough spots, seen his share of starvation and horror, he knew the signs. "Misao?" he whispered. He wanted to tell her that it was all right, except there was nothing that needed reassurance in her eyes. Just – blankness. "It's Aoshi."

She blinked a few times, and he waited for her mind to kick in, for memory to return to her. For her to throw her arms about his neck and hug him like he was the only man in the world.

"You have to come with me," he said, when she didn't. "We'll get you home. Food, something to drink. Warm bed." His voice was so normal. He felt like he would choke on it.

He wished she would raise her head.

He checked her for injuries, then. Pulled her arms – limp, unresisting – from around her legs and checked her neck, her shoulders. Pushed up her skirt a little and looked at her legs. Didn't dare to look above her knees, because it wasn't his place and he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

God, she had been with these men for _days_.

He wasn't going to go down that road.

* * *

She talked when they got back to the house. She only said one word, and that was, "No." But he was relieved beyond measure. Her eyes were closed, and he was holding a glass of milk to her lips while Rodney hovered anxiously in one corner.

"You have to drink something," he said, worried and stern and something in his chest hurt, hurt, hurt.

"No," she said, and she sounded firm and stubborn and herself. He wondered, bizarrely, if she knew exactly what was going on and was trying to punish him for getting her into all this, for being the one to bring her here, but her eyes were too blank, and he knew (hoped) that Misao wouldn't blame that on him.

And even if she did, she wouldn't _punish_ him for it.

Even if it was his fault. Even if he deserved it.

Even if –

"Dehydration can be fatal," he said. Stern, again. Scolding. Why couldn't he be kind? "Drink this, and then we'll get you something to eat." He motioned to Rodney, who scampered into the kitchen.

"No."

Sallow skin, empty eyes – he held her jaw with his hand, tried to make his fingers as gentle as he could without losing his grip, and tipped the glass against her mouth. The milk dribbled down her chin, for the most part, half over his hand, but she swallowed a good deal, if only out of reflex.

She coughed then, tore herself away from his hand with a gasp and a shove. He let her go. She curled into the arm of the sofa, half-coughing, half-retching, and when she straightened there was a spark of something in her eyes. Recognition? He didn't know. "Don't _do_ that," she said.

Annoyance, then. He could settle for that.

"You have to drink this," he said.

"I heard you the first time!"

"Then do it."

"No!"

If she recognized him, she would trust him. If she trusted him, she would recognize him. If she trusted him, she would drink something, eat something. He knew she would come back to herself after some food and a good long sleep – this wasn't anything fatal, even if it was eating him up inside. He said, "Do you even know who I am, Misao?"

Her whisper was disturbing. "You know me."

There was something there – he didn't understand it. "I do know you," he said.

There was silence.

She said, voice raspy, "Hand me the glass."

* * *

Afterwards, she fell asleep. She tucked her hands under her chin, like a little girl, and rested her head on the wooden arm of the sofa, and she went to sleep. He picked up the empty glass of milk, and the plate of sandwiches – she'd had two, and he didn't want to force her into having too much, because she'd probably bring it up later anyway – and carried them to the dining room. Rodney had disappeared a while back, but he assumed the crockery would be taken care of.

It was odd, being worried about the dishes at a time like this.

He sat down beside her, watching the wood cutting a straight wedge in the soft skin of her cheek. If things were different, she would have curled up into him, head on his shoulder, trusting without words that it was safe to touch him. Not now.

Because she didn't know who he was, he told himself sharply. Not because she didn't trust him anymore.

But it was true, he thought. She might still trust him, after she woke up – trust him with her head, but not her _self_. Her body didn't trust him now, he could see it in the way she had turned herself away, as far as possible on the small sofa.

There was a band across his chest, squeezing it tight. This is where caring got you. This is why you stepped back and refused to give a damn.

He wasn't allowed this, he knew, as he reached out for her in the fading afternoon light of the sitting room. If she had wanted to touch him, to let him touch her, she would have done it herself. But she wasn't herself just now – just yet – and he needed this.

He remembered the odd calm he'd felt, when Dunham had come in to tell him that the General had contacted him. With news that would interest Aoshi. He remembered his feeling of resignation, his feeling of – nothingness. He felt it now; numb, cold, empty. He needed to _touch _her, to assure himself that she was real.

His hands were gentle on her shoulders, and she didn't protest, even sleepily, when he pulled her up, changed her position. He meant to prop her against his side, but he decided it would be more comfortable for her to be horizontal, so he laid her down in his lap. Her head faced outwards, her legs were curled in beneath her awkwardly. He reached over and straightened them, letting them hang off the side of the sofa.

He wished the bouncy fragrance would return to her hair.

He sat there, her head resting on his legs, the bloodstain on his trenchcoat just beneath her shoulder – but he didn't know that – and his mind was blank again. There was relief, somewhere, and pain, somewhere else, but mostly, he found he wasn't thinking anything.

But she was real and solid against him, and her breath came evenly, and he … he was grateful.

* * *

"It wasn't so bad," she told him. She was sitting in his bed, wrapped in a white nightgown that covered her up to the neck, hollow circles under her eyes. "I mean, I just had to kind of wait, you know? I think they forgot about me."

He didn't say anything. He sat in the armchair she had slept in three nights ago, pulled close to the bed.

"They certainly forgot that I needed to eat," she said, and she tried to laugh. It came out choked. There was a constriction in his throat, in his heart. "I figured you would come," she said, and she didn't meet his eyes. "And you did."

"I'm sorry it took me so long." It was unexpectedly hard to get the words out, even though he meant them completely.

She seemed surprised – her head shot up, her eyes locking with his. "Hey," she said, slowly, "it's not like I think you delayed on purpose."

He realized, with a sickening jolt, that he loved her.

She looked out the window, then, and to him she seemed older than her seventeen years, with her pinched face and her hair coming out of her braid. There was something thoughtful and faraway in her eyes, and he felt he was encroaching upon something private, just by looking at her.

"Look, I – " she began, but her voice broke off. She didn't say anything.

He wondered …

The silence was heavy; there was justthe faint sound of a carriage rolling past in the street behind the house, the light whisper of wind through the trees. She snapped her eyes away from the window and looked at the glass resting on the bedside table, saying with forced lightheartedness, "Can't believe I have to drink that shit."

"Language," he admonished, feeling like he had just slipped back into a role he knew very well.

"You think the word was piss?"

"I think the _words_ are: Soap. Mouth."

"Ooh, snarky," she said, and he thought maybe her grin was real.

After a while he said, "It's just salt, in the water. It helps with the rehydration."

"It helps with shriveling up the inside of my mouth," she said.

He tried to smile for her, because he knew she would like that, but he couldn't.

He had taken her upstairs to her room, when she'd woken up on the sofa – lucid, herself, smiling and hugging him, slightly dazed, and he had felt so unreal – and told her to get some more rest, and that he was right in his room if she needed anything. He hadn't wanted to be apart from her, but he thought this was the best he could do.

Five minutes later the door to his room had been swinging open, and she had stepped in with a tentative look on her face and something haunted in her eyes. And he had helped her to his bed – light touches, across her shoulders, her hands – and then he'd stepped away and sat down. And that had been hours ago.

She had talked. He didn't want to hear it. He desperately wanted to know.

He didn't want to ask.

She said, suddenly, "I mean – they didn't hurt me. They could have, but they didn't. They just didn't seem – bothered, you know? I don't understand."

He did. They didn't give a damn about a half-grown Japanese girl who couldn't even produce a convincing swoon. He was grateful, unbelievably grateful. Something swelled in him, something painful, something giddy.

"They didn't hurt you?" he asked, just to be sure.

"No." She shook her head. "They didn't. Did you …" She looked at the bedspread, picking at it with pale fingers. "Did you hurt them?"

There was barely a pause before he said, "Yes."

"The General?"

The name sounded ominous on her lips. "You don't need to worry about him," he said, quietly.

"Is he – dead?"

Her words hung in the air, suspended in alum. But she deserved the truth. "Yes."

He waited for her to recoil, for the accusation – _Murderer_ – but she only looked down again. It's my job, he tried to tell her, silently. I did it for you. I probably would have done it anyway. It is who I am.

"Okay," she said, and he realized it hadn't been as long a pause as he had been thinking it to be.

He nodded, needlessly.

The lantern he'd placed on the coffee table in the corner of his room flickered. He watched it, once again aware of the heavy silence. She said, slowly, "I'm kind of tired."

He sat straighter in the chair. "You should sleep," he said. _I can go_, he meant.

She scooted back until her back touched the headboard, and she tucked her feet under the coverlet. "Yeah, I will," she said, but she kept sitting like that.

He remembered that feeling of impending doom he'd felt at the dinner, all those weeks ago. He'd thought, after she'd been kidnapped, that that was the doom he had anticipated, and now – with her rescue – it had come and gone. But the feeling was back again, full force, the walls of this unfamiliar room laughing down at him, _pressing_ down on him.

Waiting, with bated breath, for him to seal his fate.

It was an odd sensation, this inanimate expectancy that radiated off the walls, off the floor. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, wanting to be rid of it.

"Aoshi-sama," she said, her voice low.

"Yes?"

"I'm going to call you Aoshi from now on."

That was unexpected. "All right," he said, a little bewildered.

"It's just something new I'm trying," she explained, slight smile on her face. He liked it; it made him feel out of his depth, the way he usually felt around her. Floundering … and perfectly, happily lost.

It fell again, that silence. He couldn't stand it, and he was well aware of the irony of that thought. He, who relished silence, relished peace. But this – this was not peace. This was something heavy, oppressive – distracting. She didn't need this discomfort, not right now, when she had just gotten back from an ordeal he didn't want to think about –

He stood up, and he knew her eyes were tracking his movement. "What're you doing?" she asked, curious.

"I'm going to go downstairs for a while," he said.

Something in her face fell. "Oh."

He didn't mean to make her sad. He remembered his father, cold words, cold eyes, remembered the constrained look on his mother's face. He had thought it was regret – for her son, for herself. But he looked at Misao and wondered if it was just sadness.

"I work with a man called Dunham," he said abruptly, and he wasn't sure why he was telling her this. "He told me you had been taken. I didn't know what to do." That was a lie. He'd known exactly what he had to do. Physically. He had no idea what to do inside his head, what to think, what to feel. Just … cold. He hadn't thought _anything_.

Just two words: _Of course._

That was the only thing he had thought, and even that had disappeared in an instant.

She smiled at him. "You figured it out soon enough."

He shook his head. "No, I didn't. I took too long." _I killed him. I needed him_.

She held out her arms, absurdly puffy sleeves making her look like some kind of ghost. "I'm fine, see? A little starved-looking, but fine!"

"You should never have been taken in the first place." He hadn't meant to say that. He never wanted to admit that out loud – he never aired his failures.

"And my parents should never have died of cholera," she said, and shrugged. "Too bad."

He stared at her. He could never talk about his mother and father so casually; for him, they were a secret part of himself, an influence that had molded him into who he was, and as such something to be guarded with his life. But then perhaps he had cared more, in his way, for his parents than she had … it was an odd concept, because to him she cared for _everybody_ more than he did, but it was the only explanation he could find.

_It won't happen again_, he wanted to say, but he couldn't.

_Don't make promises you can't keep_, she would say, and smile, and something inside him would crack.

He knew that.

"I'm sorry," he said, and the words burned his throat. Too honest. He had trouble with words that were too real.

She waved a hand. "Don't be stupid, it wasn't your fault."

It was as simple as that. He knew she meant it, he knew she didn't care, and he couldn't swallow that. He sat down abruptly on the bed, a couple of feet from her, and the mattress sagged under his weight. Was it his fault? Yes. No. Misjudgment. Was he sorry? Yes. Why? Because it shouldn't have happened.

"I mean it," she said, and there was something worried in her voice.

"I know," he said.

It all came together, suddenly. He remembered days in a garden in Misselthwaite Manor, almost ten years ago. He remembered a night of screams. He remembered countless nights of silence. He remembered stories, rumours – _the man's a murderer, like father like son, poor woman, stupid woman, defenseless, alone, sick, murderer – _remembered hurt, remembered betrayal. _How could she die?_ Remembered numbness. Remembered working (hard). Remembered forgetting.

Remembered not caring.

He wanted to smile, absurdly, almost nostalgically. It had been nice, not caring. Easy. It was so much harder to sit here next to this girl who was so much younger than him and know that he loved her.

He had wondered, not too long ago, how one _knew_. What was love? What was enough?

Nothing was. But he loved her anyway.

If she had given him another minute, he would have made his decision. If she had given him another minute, he would have realized that none of it mattered, that he really did care for her. If she had given him another minute, he would have leaned forward and touched her cheek, and she would have known. If she had given him another minute, he might have kissed her.

Might.

As it was, she kissed him.

It wasn't real, not quite; soft lips at the corner of his mouth, and he was so shocked that he was frozen. She pulled back immediately, and he wondered, for a confused second, if she was just a phantom, a pale ghost-girl in her white nightdress. He groped for words, and couldn't find any. His fingertips burned.

Blush on her cheeks, then, eyes averted. Words came to her easily enough. "I'm sorry – you just looked so sad – and I – I wanted you to – I'm sorry – "

He wanted to kiss her back, because it was what he wanted and suddenly it was what she seemed to want. But she was too far away, back pressed to the headboard of the bed and apologies pouring from her lips and he didn't want her to be _sorry_.

_Impending doom indeed_, he had thought more than a month ago. He thought it again.

She stopped mid-sentence, as he leaned forward. His arm felt weighted as he raised a hand – he wanted to touch her first, make sure she was real – and he thought his shoulder creaked. So slow, and her eyes were so wide, staring at his fingers as if he was about to hurt her.

Maybe he was.

Her cheek was soft against his fingertips, and warm to match the warmth in his hands. There was something unreal about the whole situation, he felt; his mind flashed from the dark of the library in the manor to the blood on his trenchcoat, from his first impression of her as a mild-mannered young woman to the girl who'd told him she'd tried to kick Saitou. Twice. To the girl who stared at him with wide eyes, blue and green and darker than both, right here with his hand touching her cheek.

She shifted forward, a little, and his weight made a slight indentation in the mattress that caused her to slip a little closer than she had probably intended. She didn't seem to mind. Neither did he. Something in him was terrified, wanting to run, and he didn't understand because he was the one who had reached out to her after all.

And then he no longer cared.

Warm breath against his lips, real and humid, and then she kissed him or he kissed her, he wasn't sure which – but it really didn't matter. She tasted of milk, of sandwiches, or rain and fruit and sweetness. Something foreign. He'd never kissed a Japanese girl before.

Arms, twining around his neck, fingers caught in his hair. Tingles of sensation in his scalp, along his neck. His hand was still on her cheek, he couldn't move it, couldn't bring his other hand up, and her mouth was sweet. Slight tang of salt. He felt something rising inside him, a smile perhaps. He didn't know. It hurt. He loved it.

Some part of him thought that it should have been frenzied, with her, harder and more assertive – or terribly, terribly uncertain, but this was neither of the two. So slow, hands in his hair, lips open and willing against his, and he felt like someone other than himself, outside of himself. This was not him. This was not his fate.

Inevitable, perhaps, but it didn't feel like the doom he had thought it to be.

When she pulled back, he didn't want her to go. His hand dropped to her shoulder, but he held on, more to reassure himself than to reassure her. She said, "Aoshi-sama?"

He wanted to say something meaningful. Something real. Instead he said, "I thought you weren't going to call me that."

She made a face. Her lips were wet; his eyes were fixed. "Oh, yeah. Forgot."

He waited for her to say 'Aoshi', but she didn't.

They looked at each other, and he felt again that words were needed, that something had to be established, considered. That they should think ahead. But she was smiling at him, ever so slightly, and he felt something flood him, something akin to relief.

Shifted his thumb, back and forth, and the material covering her arm crinkled beneath his hand. Her lips parted, and between them he caught a glimpse of what could be. His.

It was like standing at the brink of a deep well, too close to the edge. It felt like vertigo.

Maybe it was love.

"So, um – " she started, and then she stopped. Looked at him, and there was something dopey and giddy and happy on her face, and he was entranced. She smiled, widely, and she didn't say anything.

He felt like that man again, the man who was not him, the man whose fate was not his, the man who got to touch her and kiss her, the man who wasn't condemned to a lifestyle he actually chose. And whoever that man was, he was happy to share his fate. For a while. For now.

For longer than now.

He wasn't sure, but he might have smiled back.

* * *

_Author Notes_: Another chapter after this, maybe two. Perhaps an interlude-that-isn't. After being so annoyed by this story hanging over my head, I'm finding myself strangely reluctant to finish it up. Huh.


End file.
